Anitta's Funk Revolution

After a major health scare, the Brazilian star learnt to let go and got back to her roots

-  JULYSSA LOPEZ

LAST NOVEMBER, JUST before the Latin Grammys in Seville, Spain, a crowd huddled in front of a club called Sala Cosmos, where the Brazilian superstar Anitta was co-hosting a massive party with Instagram. It got too massive: the venue was at full capacity, but that didn't stop people from shoving towards the door, eager to get in. Some of them spilled onto the pavement, dancing to the muffled, breakneck Brazilian funk beats echoing from the DJ booth.

Inside, Anitta was the life of the party, ass up and twerking on the dance floor in a highlighter-bright green-and-yellow dress. Stars like hip-hop legend DJ Premier and the Colombian pop band Morat milled about, while Anitta's dancers, nearly all of them Brazilian, backed her up. The DJ spun track after track, each moment a showcase of propulsive, hyperenergetic Brazilian funk, mirroring the parties in Rio where this voltaic blend of hip-hop, African rhythms and electronic music is played. These days, Brazilian funk (also known as funk carioca or baile funk) is bigger than ever, spawning TikTok dance challenges and full-on choreography. Anitta and her friends threw themselves into the moves a particularly complex sequence involved push-ups. At one point, Ovy on the Drums, the producer known for making hits with Karol G, came up and told her that to keep up, "uno tiene que ser atleta" "you have to be an athlete."

Late into the night, someone on Anitta's team told her she could go home if she wanted. "I was like, 'I'm already drunk! Why am I going to leave?"" She ended up being one of the last people standing, shutting down the club. "It was like 3am, and they were like, 'OK, they need to close the venue.' I was like, 'Where's the afterparty?" she says. "I said, 'I'm only leaving when I'm kicked out, and I got kicked out."