Popular Brazilian singer Anitta has become the target of fierce backlash after releasing a music video that highlighted Brazil’s persistent religious intolerance and racism.
The outrage began Monday when the 31-year-old pop star shared a video preview of her new song “Aceita” (“Accept” in Portuguese) with her 65 million followers on Instagram. She said she lost 200,000 followers in two hours.
The video shows Candomblé practicing his faith. Her Instagram account displayed images of the artist in religious garb with Father Candomblé, as well as still images of spiritual items and other iconography associated with the faith.
Candomblé is considered a mixed religion. That is, it is based on various beliefs and traditions.
Scholars say the faith developed from a mixture of Yoruba, Fon and Bantu beliefs brought to present-day Brazil by enslaved West Africans during the colonial expansion of the Portuguese Empire.
A 2022 U.S. State Department report on religious freedom in Brazil found that although only 2% of the population holds a religious faith, Afro-Brazilian religions, such as Candomblé, account for a disproportionate number of reported cases of religious intolerance.
For centuries, Candomblé was relegated to the shadows. In an overwhelmingly Catholic society, it was considered diabolical witchcraft and a public danger.
“They were prosecuted on the premise that they were a risk to public health because the witchcraft laws were hidden in public health law,” said Ana Paulina Lee, a professor of Latin American and Iberian culture at Columbia University.
Despite the backlash this week, the response to Anitta’s video has been overwhelmingly positive. Many people praised her for paying her respect to her religion.
Nonetheless, critics flooded her Instagram post.
One person wrote in Portuguese: “This is pure magic. Even a layman can see that it is Satanism.”
Her black-and-white video depicts different religions, such as Catholicism, and the lyrics appear to speak broadly to themes of acceptance, suggesting that the song is a commentary on religious intolerance.
Anitta, born Larissa Machado, gained huge popularity in Brazil in 2013 with the pop song “Meiga e Abusada”, written in Portuguese.
She released several albums in the 2010s, and cemented her popularity with her performance at the 2016 Olympic opening ceremony in her hometown of Rio de Janeiro.
Anitta established herself among Latin American audiences after releasing several Spanish-language hits featuring famous reggaeton artists such as J Balvin. She was part of a wave of Latin American artists who successfully entered the American market.
On Tuesday she performed on NBC’s “The Voice,” and this month Anita drew 1.6 million fans at a free concert in Rio de Janeiro with Madonna. Last year, Anitta performed at the MTV Video Music Awards and she was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist. In 2022, she appeared on the main stage at the Coachella Music Festival.
As her celebrity grew, Anita answered questions about her faith candidly.
In 2018, when she was criticized for not criticizing Brazil’s newly elected far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, Anita said she was isolated for several weeks as part of her Candomblé induction ceremony.
This faith, characterized by percussive rituals and celebrations honoring several deities, has gone underground since its founding.
Practitioners once adopted Catholic iconography to cover their actions, Lee said.
Luis Nicolau Parés, a professor of anthropology at the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil, said it was not until the 20th century that mainstream society recognized Brazil’s African heritage and tolerated expressions of Candomblé in an effort to foster a stronger Brazilian national identity. He said he started doing it. He, he wrote a book about Candomblé.
In the 1970s and 80s, Brazilian artists and intellectuals embraced and celebrated this religion. Government officials also acknowledged this.
At the same time, Brazil’s evangelical Christian population increased from a single-digit percentage in 1991 to 26% in 2022. The rise of neo-Pentecostal churches helped revive anti-Candomblé sentiment.
Professor Parés said of Candomblé, “It has been demonized in a way that forces people to convert and convert to Christianity.”
As acts of violence and discrimination targeting Candomblé and other Afro-Brazilian religions continue, activists have pointed out that racial issues are inextricably linked.
In a social media post, Anita said she had been the target of ‘religious racism’. The term was introduced by Candomblé leaders to describe acts of religious intolerance against Afro-Brazilian faiths, the professor said.
“What happened to Anita happens every day,” said the professor, who pointed to the murder of the famous Candomblé priestess last year.
“I think it’s very important to show that this is not new. But this is part of a long history of anti-Black racism and it’s not just about skin,” she said.
“If you’re chasing your faith, you’re chasing your soul,” she added.
Leonardo Coelho contributed to the report.
