Shane Lee Lindstrom is delighted with Brazil. Known in the world of pop and trap music as Murda Beatz, Anitta’s Canadian fiance came with the singer to the country, where he fell in love with the food, Rio de Janeiro’s scenery, the atmosphere of football stadiums and our funk.
“It’s a beautiful country,” he said. “Seeing Christ the Redeemer was amazing. The food is delicious, especially if you can get a chef to cook home-cooked food. Rice and beans with meat, the stroganoff, everything is very good.”

Accustomed to attending football matches played with his hands, the American Murda Beatz was at the Allianz Parque, in São Paulo, to see live the sport played with his feet. “I watched the first football game of my life [do Palmeiras]and the vibe in a match like this is crazy energy, absolutely crazy.”

Despite a solo career as a producer, Murda is best known for the beats and melodies he creates for the songs of other singers – and among them are some of the most listened to on the planet. This is the case of Travis Scott’s single “Butterfly Effect”, of “Nice For What”, Drake’s hit with a sample by Lauryn Hill which reached the top of the American charts, “Motorsport”, of the trap trio Migos with Cardi B and Nicky. Minaj and Ariana Grande’s “Motive” with Doja Cat.

Recently, he reunited his fiancée, Anitta, with Quavo –of Migos–, J Balvin and Pharrell in the song “No Más,” a sunny, traveling trap to pack summer into the northern hemisphere. “Pharrell gave me the musical idea, with the flute,” he says. “It was a sample of something. It started with Quavo, but I was working with J Balvin in LA. He loved it and got into it too. Then I added my girlfriend, Anitta.”

Despite being known in Brazil as the boyfriend of one of the country’s biggest pop stars, Murda Beatz has a solid career in American hip-hop. Now 28, the producer worked with Chief Keef in Chicago’s then harrowing drill scene a decade ago, before meeting Migos and producing the songs of one of the most important bands. in the popularization of trap over the past decade.

“I can come here and talk in a way that feels easy,” he says. “But you have to dedicate yourself and work harder than everyone else to make it work. In my day everyone was posting their beats on the internet, but nobody was going to Chicago or Atlanta to meet people.”

Murda Beatz says that he was a rocker and that it was precisely at the beginning of the trap that he became interested in musical production. “When I heard Waka Flocka, Gucci Mane, Chief Keef, those guys, I started wanting to do trap. Before, I was playing drums, rock, remixes in the style of [baterista do Blink 182] Travis Barker for rap songs. But it was while listening to Trap that I wanted to grab my laptop and start producing.”

He even sees similarities between the early days of trap, before the subgenre became dominant in pop music, and Brazilian funk. “If I had to explain funk to someone who doesn’t know what it’s all about, I think the best way to describe it is to compare it to trap when it was underground in the United States there. is about seven years old. It’s literally the music of the Brazilian ghetto. Even though there’s a lot of mainstream funk music, there’s a funk beat in everything.

For Murda Beatz, who makes 500 to 800 beats a year, a minority of which reach the ears of the public, the experiences in Brazil broaden his range of influences. He says he wants to make songs with rapper L7nnon, from Rio, in addition to having worked with the trap group from São Paulo Recayd Mob and preparing other collaborations with Brazilian artists.

It is an interest that is largely due to Anitta, whose music he discovered in the game “Fifa”. “Then I met her last year in Miami. We swapped phones, kept talking. She sent me funk playlists, and it was the first time I heard them. Some of those songs that I really liked, I messaged the producers and everything. Anitta and I kept talking.”

For him, Americans see Anitta as a rising artist. “She’s having a monstrous year, she’s having a big hit, she works a lot. She’s the hardest working person I know, that I’ve ever been close to or worked with in all these years in music. It inspires me, made me want to work.”

The singer’s boyfriend also claims that in the United States she is still not recognized as in the rest of the world. “She’s very talented. I don’t think Americans know how important she is to the world. Whether I’m in Portugal or Brazil with her, seeing how people treat her and look at her, I think the United States still does not know how to understand its power and its importance.