Anitta’s Fans Are Crediting Her With Globalization Of Baile Funk Music
Brazilian superstar Anitta is being celebrated for helping globalize baile funk music. Over the weekend, Anitta’s fans credited her with the genre being recognized by the Latin Grammys. However, the Latin Recording Academy had long recognized “baile funk” in the criteria for their Best Urban/Fusion categories.
Things got carried away when Pedro Sampaio congratulated Anitta.
Things kicked off over the weekend when Brazilian DJ Pedro Sampaio posted a photo of the Latin Grammys with baile funk, or Brazilian funk, underlined. Tagging Anitta, he wrote, “You made it happen.”
The Latin Recording Academy has actually recognized baile funk for years.
There hasn’t been any update to the Best Urban and Best Urban Fusion categories because baile funk has long existed in those categories. Baile funk is not in its own category, but rather the Latin Recording Academy expanded the definition of “música urbana” to include the Brazilian genre. For a genre that was created by Black Brazilians in the favelas, that’s major representation for one of the country’s emerging sounds.
Anitta charted the first baile funk song on Billboard last year.
Even though Anitta didn’t change anything in the Latin Grammy categories, she’s definitely a global ambassador for baile funk music, especially in the past year. For her upcoming bilingual album Girl From Rio, she put the genre on the global stage with last year’s “Me Gusta” featuring Cardi B and Myke Towers. When the song peaked at No. 91 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart, it became the first baile funk entry. Pabllo Vittar is another Brazilian proponent of baile funk music.
“Urbana” needs to stop being used a genre in Latin music.
Recognizing baile funk in the fine print of the categories was a step in the right direction for the Latin Recording Academy in expanding the definition of what constitutes Latin music. For the Latin Grammys to still be using “urbana” as a genre is antiquated as the Grammys have dropped “urban” as a category due to its racist connotations. Just call these genres as they are and move them from the fine print into their own categories.
UPDATE: This story originally reported that the Latin Recording Academy added “baile funk” to the Best Urban/Best Urban Fusion categories over the weekend. That’s not true. According to precedent, “baile funk” has long been part of the language and criteria for the categories. There was no change issued to the categories over the past weekend.
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