Just two weeks after her not-so-amicable parting from Warner Music was announced, Brazilian superstar singer Anitta has inked with Universal’s Republic Records, sources close to the deal tell PvNew. Republic declined requests for comment.
The singer, who is managed by Brandon Silverstein at S10 Entertainment, left Warner after 11 years at the company and a big effort by the company’s Warner Records label to break the singer in the U.S. with her multi-genre latest album “Versions of Me,” released just over a year ago. Despite a blockbuster performance at last year’s Coachella festival, a massive international hit with the song “Envolver” (which has amassed more than 500 million streams on Spotify), and collaborations on the album with hitmakers like Max Martin, Ryan Tedder and Stargate — not to mention features from Saweetie, Missy Elliott, Khalid and Maluma — the album was not a hit in the U.S., although she remains a superstar in Latin America and other territories.
While she made significant strides in the U.S. — winning an MTV Video Music Award, landing a Grammy nomination for best new artist and co-hostingthe Latin Grammy Awards — she split with the company; sources say she paid “millions” to get out of her contract.
“After eleven years of successful partnership, we’ve agreed to go our separate ways,” read a statement from the label and artist. “Anitta would like to thank the Warner Music team for all their support. And the Warner team wishes Anitta all the best in future.”
Shortly before the split, Anitta had voiced her displeasure with the company on social media by posting various notes about their lack of attention and communication.
In a screenshot of an email she had purportedly sent to the CEO of one of Warner’s several music divisions, she claimed that she was forced to ask the label to do things “you are supposed to naturally do,” and ended her argument by stating that she was going to “hire a new person [whose] job will be [to] ‘ask Warner to do their job everyday.’”
“When you’re young and still don’t know much, you have to pay close attention to the things you sign,” she wrote on Twitter. On Instagram, she posted, “I asked the label to just do the simple job they were supposed to: promote my music.”
While she wasn’t specific about said shortcomings, Anitta had hinted that she felt pressured to include featured artists to better her chances at a hit song. In her native Brazil, Anitta is in a league of her own, carrying a social media following of 84 million between Instagram and Twitter.
