Shane Lee Lindstrom is happy with Brazil. Known in the pop and trap music scene as Murda Beatz, Canadian fiancé Anitta came with the singer to the country, where she fell in love with the food, the views of Rio de Janeiro, the atmosphere at the football stadium and our funk.
“This is a beautiful country,” he said. “Seeing Christ the Redeemer was amazing. The food was amazing, especially if you could ask the chef to cook a homemade meal. Rice and beans with meat, stroganoff, all very good.”

Accustomed to going to football matches played with his hands, Murda Beatz from America was at the Allianz Parque, in São Paulo, to see the sport played with his feet firsthand. “I watched the first football game in my life [do Palmeiras]and the atmosphere in a match like that is crazy, the energy is absolutely insane.”

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

Recently, he reunited his fiancé, Anitta, with Quavo – from Migos–, J Balvin and Pharrell in the song “No Más”, a traveling and sunny trap to pack the northern hemisphere summer. “Pharrell gave me a musical idea, with the flute,” he said. “That’s an example of something. It started with Quavo, but I worked with J Balvin in LA. He liked it and came in too. Then I added my girl, Anitta.”

Despite the fact that, in Brazil, she is known as the girlfriend of one of the country’s biggest pop stars, Murda Beatz has had a solid career in American hip-hop. Now 28 years old, the producer worked with Chief Keef in Chicago who was going through a heartwarming drill scene about ten years ago, before meeting Migos and producing songs from one of the most important groups in popularizing trap over the past few years.

“I can come here and talk in a way that seems easy,” he said. “But you have to dedicate yourself and work harder than anyone else to make it work. In my day, everyone posts their beats on the internet, but no one goes to Chicago or Atlanta to meet people.”

Murda Beatz said that she was a rocker and it was precisely at the beginning of the trap that she became interested in music production. “When I heard Waka Flocka, Gucci Mane, Chief Keef, those guys, I started wanting to do traps. Before I played drums, rock, remixes in this style [baterista do Blink 182] Travis Barker for rap songs. But it listened to the pitfalls I wanted to take my laptop and start producing.”

He even sees similarities between the beginnings of trap, before the subgenre became dominant in pop music, and Brazilian funk. “If I had to explain funk to someone who didn’t know what it was, I think the best way to describe it would be to compare it to traps when they were underground in the United States, about seven years ago. It’s really music from the Brazilian ghetto. Although there’s a lot of mainstream funk music, there’s funk beats in everything.”

For Murda Beatz, who makes 500 to 800 beats a year, of which minorities reach the public ear, the experience in Brazil expands her reach. He said he wanted to compose a song with rapper L7nnon, from Rio, in addition to working with São Paulo trap group Recayd Mob and is preparing another collaboration with a Brazilian artist.

This is an interest largely due to Anitta, whose music she knows about in the game “Fifa”. “Then I met him last year in Miami. We exchanged calls, kept talking. He sent me a funk playlist, and it was the first time I heard it. Some of the songs I really liked, I messaged the producers and all. Anitta and I keep talking.”

For him, Americans see Anitta as a rising artist. “He’s had a terrible year, he’s had big hits, he’s done a lot of work. He’s the hardest working person I know, who I’ve been close to or I’ve worked with for years in music. It inspires me, makes I want to work.”

The singer’s girlfriend also said that, in the United States, she is still not recognized worldwide. “He’s very talented. I don’t think Americans know how important he is to the world. Whether I’m in Portugal or Brazil with him, seeing how people treat him and view him, I think the United States still doesn’t understand his power and importance.”