Southbank Centre, LondonThe Chic supremo serves up a genial, all-inclusive musical feast, with Brazilian pop star Anitta leading the charge and thrilling her captivated audience…
A genial anarchy has descended on the Royal Festival Hall as the audience readies itself to receive Anitta, Brazil’s biggest pop star. Born Larissa de Macedo Machado in the same year the Meltdown festival began, the 26-year-old is curator Nile Rodgers’ most eye-catching booking. The Chic guitarist has taken great care to ensure that his nine-day festival wraps its arms around as many ages, genders, sexualities and continents as it can, and Anitta embodies his inclusive ethos. A bisexual singer-songwriter-dancer-producer-manager brought up in the favelas and raised up by
Instagram, Anitta has curated her career, her brand, to appeal to every possible demographic. Some, however, have criticised her for not denouncing the reactionary Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, quickly or loudly enough, as if her very existence wasn’t a rebuke to his toxic stew of misogyny and homophobia.
The energy Anitta inspires tonight is hugely female, slightly gay and head-spinningly euphoric. There’s more Portuguese being spoken than English, and a bewildering number of you’re-not-going-out-like-that outfits for a Tuesday night, not least on Nile himself, who’s chosen a luminous yellow camo confusion that probably has a half-life of around 500 years. He’s an expert, self-deprecating crowdpleaser, lying on the stage for front-row selfies, then leading us in a thunderous chant of “Anitta! Anitta!” before diving out of the way lest he get crushed by the oncoming pop juggernaut. Everyone who can stand is jumping and yelling, and the venue totters on the verge of an actual meltdown.