Brazilian pop queen Anitta stirred the pot this past week when she candidly shared her thoughts on the shifting dynamics of the music industry in regard to music video viewership. In an interview with honesty, she told how irritated she feels when a great amount is invested in a music video and it records less viewers compared to previous works. “People don’t value music videos anymore. You spend millions of dollars and nobody watches them, said Anitta, exasperated by how the way people watch has changed. Her remarks capture a dynamic that is playing out across the music industry as acts revisit long-standing playbooks due to streaming services and social media rewriting the rules on just how listeners consume music.
Living in a time when the core of everything is digital, Spotify and YouTube truly have been able to uproot the consumption habits of audiences, whereas social media has brought a whole different ball game into the equation. Bitesized content, easier to consume-like song clips or behind-the-scenes footage-tends to outrank the full-length music video itself. This new paradigm of consumption begins to puzzle artists-like Anitta-who have grown up relying on high-budget music videos as one of their primary modes of promotion. Such is the case for Anitta, who has invested “millions of dollars” into video production, and for whom the current climate has forced her to wonder whether it’s all worth it. Instead, she now focuses on other forms of artistic expression; creativity comes first, far above raw commercial success.
This change of vision is fed by the recent health problems that have made Anitta reflect on her career and the artistic proposals she has been making. Far from the pressures for commercial success, he is now interested in making something that resonates with him a little more personally. As part of her new approach, Anitta has made amends with Brazilian funk-a genre deeply rooted in her culture. She looks to raise its bar internationally by infusing funk rhythms into her music, starting projects that show her Brazilian identity rather than traditional commercial metrics.
This is evident through her newest single, “São Paulo,” featuring The Weeknd-the global superstar-she just put out.
On Halloween, the song drops with a ghostly feel; dark emotive themes that are carved out, desperately carry that hint of Brazilian funk influence unique to each artist. Drawing inspiration from one of the popular Brazilian funk songs, “Bota na Boca, Bota na Cara”, this single conveys an abnormally gritty and intensely vibrant energy that has come to define São Paulo’s music scene.
The song begins and ends on subtle funk rhythms, uniquely Brazilian flair to The Weeknd’s typically dark soundscape. Sure-thing lyrics from Anitta infuse the track with confidence and control-a haunted counterbalance to The Weeknd’s tone of vulnerability and submission. The Weeknd adds: “kill me softly like you want me euthanized”; such lines create a tinge of vulnerability and raise emotional power in desire and seduction for this song. It was producer Mike Dean who brought Anitta and The Weeknd together; he approached her to contribute a few lines. But soon, work on the track unfolded with her inimitable sound and audacious style right at the center.
In a recent Billboard interview, Dean remembered how immediate collective enthusiasm about Anitta’s first verse from the team led them to craft the full song around her contribution immediately after its delivery, thus arguably creating one of 2024’s most stand-out collaborations. While looking to the future, Anitta says her focus goes beyond music videos and even beyond music itself. Remaining open to other forms of creativity, she mentioned that perhaps she would move into acting-the medium with which she could express her in-depth style through new forms of storytelling. In this manner, more and more, Anitta’s career has been able to unfold as a representation of an increasingly popular trend taken by artists: the need to feel satisfied through creative expression rather than measured success.
