Singer Anitta won the award for Best Latin Music Video with “Envolver” at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) on Sunday, August 28.
This was the singer’s first nomination for the award, making history as the first Brazilian artist to perform on the VMA stage and to take home a statuette. Among her competitors were names like Bad Bunny, who won Artist of the Year, Daddy Yankee, and J Balvin.
In her speech, she thanked her family and fans and recalled the criminalization of funk.
“My God, I didn’t expect this. I think I’m going to cry. I just want to say, for those who don’t know, today is history. It’s Brazil’s first time here. It’s the first time my country has won this award. I want to thank: thank you to my family and my fans. Today I sang here a rhythm that, for many years in my country, was considered a crime. I was born in the ghetto of Brazil and, for those who were born there, we never thought this was possible. So thank you very much.”
Anitta started singing at the age of 8 in a choir at a Catholic church in the Honório Gurgel neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. In 2010, after posting a video on YouTube, Renato Azevedo, then a producer at the independent label Furacão 2000, called her to sign a contract with the label. Due to the success of the song “Meiga e Abusada” in 2012, she signed a contract with Warner Music Brasil the following year.
She gained national fame in 2013 after releasing the single “Show das Poderosas.” The music video for the song was viewed over 130 million times on YouTube. In July of the same year, she released her first studio album, which received a triple gold record certification and platinum certification from ABPD. The album reached the mark of 170,000 copies sold. In November 2014, she performed at the Latin Grammy Award, becoming the youngest Brazilian singer to perform at the event.
In 2013, Anitta was the artist who stayed the longest at the top of iTunes Brazil and was named Artist of the Year by this social network. She was also named the revelation of the year in music in 2013 by the São Paulo Association of Art Critics (APCA). She is a five-time winner of Best Brazilian Artist at the MTV Europe Music Awards and was the first Brazilian artist to win the award for Best Latin American Artist.
In 2017, she was named by Billboard as the 15th most influential artist in the world on social media, ahead of artists like Lady Gaga, Shakira, and Rihanna.