Brazilian singer Anitta went from an unknown to singing at the Olympic Games, becoming Brazil's answer to the likes of Rihanna, Beyoncé, or Katy Perry, and one of the country's biggest stars.
Born Larissa de Macedo Machado on March 30, 1993 and brought up in the impoverished neighborhood of Honório Gurgel in Rio de Janeiro, she began singing in church as a child and learned to dance before getting into baile funk as a teenager. She took her stage name from the central character in the TV mini-series Presença de Anita (Anita's Presence), based on the 1948 proto-Lolita novel by...