Note from BW of Brazil: Really looking forward to seeing what this young lady will be able to do with her own original material! IZA, as she is known, has already attracted thousands of followers due to her cover versions of international Pop hits by the likes of Beyoncé, Rihanna, Sam Smith, Drake and even Prince! In past posts, we’ve already explored how difficult it is for black female singers to crossover into the more lucrative Brazilian Popular Music market without being pigeon-holed into the Samba singer category. Of course, the huge success of Ludmilla offers a glimmer of hope as we’ve seen that young lady go from a You Tube sensation to center stage at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio! But let’s not forget, we’re still waiting to see what the music industry’s going to do with the young lady that has been deemed the “Brazilian Whitney Houston”! With that said, if IZA should blow up over the next few years, remember, you probably heard of her here first!
Brazil embracing a new diva! With a mix of Pop and R&B, IZA is set to enters the Brazilian Popular Music scene!
By Matheus Fabio and Alysson Villalba
Warner Music has in its hands on great singers of the national entertainment universe, including Anitta, Ludmilla and Biel. With the recent controversies of the latter and his tweets that have left the career of the singer tainted among the public (1), the record company is betting on new artists in order not to lose credibility or much less money.
One of them is Isabela Lima, known as IZA, who was officially signed in May of this year by the career management company and is already preparing her first single. The singer, who is from Rio, has been singing since she was a child and at 14 years of age began to do shows for the church she attended.
Soon afterward, everything happened very fast. With a degree in Advertising, she got to work with video editing, but saw that her talent was really for singing. With a unique charisma and talent, IZA soon won over the world and her videos on YouTube caught the attention of the record company, which hasn’t lost the chance to extend the invitation.
“After that, I worked with marketing, I ended up in a co-working space and found myself there. I really found myself as a singer was willing to bet on it. Then I dropped everything to devote myself to this. That was a year and a half ago,” says the artist.
In the video platform, she got the opportunity. And just like international artists such as Justin Bieber, she launched her own channel and began to show her talent to the world. The covers of international successes are its main highlights.
Iza goes beyond the voice
As revealed on the Internet, in the singer’s social networks, we can perceive the close proximity of her followers and fans that have kept up with her dream from the very beginning. As an example, in one of her videos, she reveals that she had a lot of insecurity in taking a risk in music, but she knew her dream and wouldn’t give up, always receiving the support of all who follow her.
The singer uses her talent to spread her discourse of women and black empowerment, and soon, with the release of previously unreleased tracks, this will be very present in her career that’s still “in its infancy”, but quickly growing.
The artist’s inspirations leave no doubt of her market visibility and influence: going from legends like Lauryn Hill, Tina Turner, Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder, also including singers who are now very successful such as Beyoncé, Rihanna and Tinashe, Brazilian rapper Emicida and Brazilian Popular Music legend and BBC’s “Singer of the Century”, Elza Soares, the winner of the Best Album of the Year Award of Brazilian Music in 2016.
Besides her booming voice, IZA’s style and strong presence are often commented on by her fans on social networks.
Looking forward to the single, the album and everything else IZA has in store for us. Success!
Check out more of IZA’s interpretations below:
Follow the singer on social networks to not miss any news:
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/aizaoficial/
Instagram – http://instagram.com/iza.real/
YouTube – http://youtube.com/c/izaoficial
Source: Portal Famosos, Caos Bravo, Brasil Post, O Dia
Note
- Singer Biel (Gabriel Marins), 20, is a popular singer who gained fame through releasing his music on You Tube and being labeled the “Brazilian Justin Bieber” due to his adapting a similar look as the Canadian pop star. Originally known as MC Biel, the singer would later drop the MC from his stage name (similar to Warner label mates Anitta and Ludmilla) and earn a following with a style he branded “funk sedução”, or “seduction funk”. Having made a name for himself among funk fans in 2015, Biel’s career has taken a downward spiral after fans dug up a series of tweets that offended many. This writer is not a fan of Biel’s music but the details of his controversial tweets fit in well with our ongoing analysis of racism and whiteness and white privilege and how it plays out in Brazil. See for yourself in a piece from Brasil Post.
- A classification that has been discussed in numerous posts and key to understanding how race works in Brazil.
Biel’s misogynist, racist and homophobic past Biel on Twitter is SCARY
Courtesy of Brasil Post
And it seems that Biel doesn’t get tired of making gaffes. Bad gaffes.
After accusing the journalist Giulia Pereira, who filed a lawsuit against the singer for harassment in June of this year, of having damaged his career and “years of work,” Biel locked his Twitter profile after users dug up dozens of prejudiced tweets made by singer.
The prints of tweets, dated between 2011 and 2012, started to go viral since yesterday (August 1st) and brought new criticisms of the singer.
The posts are littered with racism, misogyny, homophobia, gordofobia (fat-phobia) and even prejudice against the elderly. In July 2011, for example, the singer tweeted: “Give up my place on the bus for the elderly? We grind all day to give up our seats to those who have retirement and scratch their ass all day?”.
At the same time, the singer wrote: “Three Africans find a magic lamp: 1st – I want to be white 2nd – I also want to be white. Third – I want them to go back to being black ….” Another tweet bids a good day to the “negros fedidos” (stinking blacks).
And that’s not all. He also shares his view about actress Taís Araújo.
“She’s beautiful bro, the only morena (2), negra, who knows, that I think is beautiful,” he wrote in July 2012.
He still shared his biased opinion about Adele.
“That ‘Adele’ could be sexy right, so her music (sic) would be even more beautiful kk (laughs)”.
In another tweet, Biel condoned rape when commenting on the singer Amy Lee, of Evanescence.
“Whoever hates evanescence and thinks she should fall on stage and be raped by psychotic fans give a retweet,” he wrote in October 2011.
As if that wasn’t enough, the singer also did show of homophobia on the social network. In May 2012, Biel said “fags have every right to be fags, but don’t need to be extravagant, right?” and he continued: “I am a man and don’t go out there lavishing masculinity and machismo.”
(Oh no?)
According to the blog EMais of the Estadão newspaper/website, shortly after the prints began to go viral, the singer locked his Twitter account.
The profile also lost its blue stamp Twitter Verification (that tells people that a public interest account is authentic).
Besides trying to protect his account from attacks, the prints are still circulating with a vengeance on networks – and awakening (even more) indignation of users:
Understand the case
In June of this year, the ex-IG portal reporter, Giulia Pereira, denounced the harassment she suffered during an interview with Biel. According to the report, he called the journalist “gostosinha” (a little sexy) and said that he would “break her in the middle” if they were to have sex.
The 20-year-old singer has been denounced by professionals at the 1st Police Station for Women in São Paulo for sexual harassment.
Since then, the singer has tried several times to justify his attitudes and ended up further worsening the situation. In an interview with TV Fama, of TV Network (channel)!, last Monday (August 1st), Biel said he was harmed greatly because of the journalist’s complaint.
“I first wanted to leave her aware of how much she hurt my career. It’s a work of years, not only mine, but of a business group, a label,” he said.
“At the same time, wanted to thank you because I learned a lot from this and it could have been much worse. I witnessed everything and know how much of a relaxed atmosphere we were in. I was wrong to have made the jokes that I made with a person I don’t know.”
Biel, just stop
Note from BW of Brazil: So now we know a little about how Biel looks at life. When I first noticed this artist begin to attract major media attention my first thought was that this guy’s career would explode simply because physically, he is what Brazilian society deems attractive. His association with Justin Bieber is simply more proof of this. As we saw in both of his comments of a racial nature, Biel clearly knows that whiteness is the category is the status that is perched atop the racial hierarchy. Making jokes about Africans wishing they could be white cannot be interpreted in any other manner. All one need do to recognize this is just consider how African immigrants are treated in Brazil; or how physical features associated with African ancestry are ridiculed. To seal this argument, consider the fact that of all the beautiful black women in Brazil, actress Taís Araújo is the only black woman that is beautiful! Acceptance of and identification with whiteness and white privilege to the maximum degree!
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