May 06, 2022

Anitta Graces Cover of Nylon's Music Issue

Introducing Anitta, The Cover Star of Nylon's 2022 Music Issue

Anitta was born and raised in the Honório Gurgel favela of Rio de Janeiro. She slept in the same room as her mother and brother because that’s where the air conditioning unit was, a luxury they could only afford to turn on for a few minutes at night. They’re still close. “Family is the thing that makes me feel grounded,” she says. “When I come back home, I’m treated as the same motherfucker as always. I speak to them literally every day.”

In 2010, when she was 16 years old, she went locally viral. Dressed in a bright, striped minidress, she filmed herself singing into a deodorant stick and put it on YouTube. The video caught the attention of Furacão 2000, a Brazilian record label that specializes in funk carioca, and her career began. She started using the stage name Anitta (inspired by a Lolita-esque Brazilian miniseries) and became known as Hurricane Anitta around the neighborhood.

“My mom tells me a story. When I was a teenager, I started to go out, I loved to party. She said, ‘Daughter, you got to stay home.’ And I said, ‘There’s going to be a day [when] you’ll beg me to go out and I won’t be able to because I will be so famous.’”

— Anitta

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