Pop music is a mirror of its time. In Brazil, it’s arduous to not join the very best music launched in 2024 with the themes that dominated politics, tradition, and social media discussions all year long.

This was the 12 months when Black Consciousness Day grew to become a vacation throughout all Brazilian states, and pop music performed the identical tune. A lot of 2024’s best albums celebrated Black tradition and ancestry, weaving tales of pleasure and pleasure into the soundscape of up to date Brazil. Artists like Cristal and Os Garotin reinvented traditions for a brand new technology, whereas others like Sued Nunes, Melly, and Yan Cloud current new concepts of what incorporating African ancestrality into pop would possibly sound like.

2024 additionally turned Brazil’s gaze northward, actually. The guts and residential of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest and the most important variety of indigenous teams, the secularly missed Northern area lastly noticed its tradition shining by means of a wider array of lights. What started with actuality present stars like Isabelle Nogueira and Alane Dias showcasing Parintins’ and carimbó tradition on nationwide TV grew to become a broader cultural shift. Nonetheless reaping the fruits from the 2023 revival of Joelma’s 2016 observe “Voando professional Pará”, Northern Brazil’s rhythms and Indigenous voices enriched the 12 months’s most memorable pop music.

In a rustic as advanced and numerous as Brazil, it’s solely proper {that a} music checklist can operate virtually as a lesson on geography, historical past, or politics as nicely. However pop music doesn’t all the time put on a transparent crucial message on its sleeve. It doesn’t have to. Pop artists from marginalized teams are additionally allowed to giggle regardless of the hardships and cry for causes unrelated to their survival. Liniker, who made historical past in 2022 as the primary trans artist to win a Latin Grammy, captivated Brazil as soon as extra in 2024, making individuals dance and dream to the passionate lyricism of Caju. In 2024, the common topic sang by means of the physique of a Black transwoman. 

The perfect Brazilian pop albums of 2024 are a complete lot of magnificence and enjoyable.

15. Melly — Amaríssima (Som Livre)

Together with Rio de Janeiro’s samba, the State of Bahia has been on the entrance line of Brazil’s custom of incorporating components of the nation’s African ancestry into music, synthesized within the axé style. For the brand new technology of Bahia skills, Melly is amongst these crafting Brazil’s personal breed of recent R&B. Her first album, Amaríssima, is likely to be too gradual and introspective to suit neatly into the pop mould however tracks like “Cacau” and “Rio Vermelho” present Melly’s knack for pop melodies. The smoothness she blends R&B, entice, pagodão baiano, and ijexá can’t be dismissed. 

14. Barro — Língua (Zelo + Barro)

After spending six years writing and producing for different artists, Barro mastered his craft in a various spectrum of rhythms. Língua, his second studio album, compiles a mess of pop languages he’s fluent in. These go from reggae (“Vira lata caramelo”) to funk (“Me ter”) to samba (“Se for pra ver”), to axé (“Minha língua”, “Cobra corta caminho”), and even a fusion of synthpop, reggaeton and Afrobeats (“Deixa acender”). The widespread denominator is a quiet, confessional ambiance, matched by low-range vocals. Whereas the manufacturing makes Língua gratifying from starting to finish, the melodies and lyrics depart no room for doubt that Barro is a songwriter at coronary heart.

13. UANA — Megalomania (Fábrica Estúdios)

The heavy partitions of sound of Northeastern brega funk are normally not met with vocals as clear and candy as UANA’s. Curiously, the method works in Megalomania — however not and not using a softening of the style’s typical manufacturing, constructing on the pattern popularized by artists like Duda Beat. UANA additionally has adventures in hip-hop/entice (“Megalomania” and “Gulosa”) and home (“Kriptonita”). Whereas not all tracks are equally memorable, the very best ones (“Eu tenho o molho”, “Esquina”, “À primeira vista”) exhibits that there’s a pleasant path forward of UANA.

12. Totô de Babalong — Pescoço salgado (Ala Comunicação e Cultura)

Totô de Babalong is an interesting persona. Pescoço salgado shouldn’t be his first album, nevertheless it works as a wonderful calling card for him. With humorous lyrics that trace at social media jargon and a sugar-coated edge manufacturing, the album reinterprets peripheric genres like piseiro by means of references and aesthetics that shout out to worldwide popular culture — just like the allusion to E. L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Gray” in “Cinquenta tons de pinga”, and its bachata beats.

There’s a ringing latinity to Pescoço salgado, with its apex within the bachata “Jogo de Louça”. But, the album unmistakably carries the imprint of bed room pop and American pop requirements. “Beyblade” appears like Lana Del Rey meets Barões da Pisadinha. “Às avessas por você” makes use of a doo-wop tailor-made refrain melody to intonate a humorous, sassy lyric. These are wild mixes, however Babalong surfs on the deliberate comicness of all of it.

11. Yan Cloud — AFROSSA (Unbiased)

The borrowing of the strains between singing and rapping has birthed a class of Brazilian artists that wander invariably alongside hip-hop and pop, akin to Flora Matos and Yago Oproprio. Yan Cloud leans in direction of pop in AFROSSA. He embraces entice (“ESCURO”) and rap (“XIU!”), however he’s additionally dedicated to creating danceable, catchy songs (“Nêga”, “Mexe”) inside the pop mould. For that, he bets on Afrobeats from the angle of an artist hailing from Bahia, the Brazilian state most deeply rooted in Black and African heritage. AFROSSA displays how African heritage has lengthy been woven into Brazil’s musical material and the way it has developed to generate and dialogue with new rhythms. 

10. Cristal — EPIFANIA (CRISTAL)

Rapper and singer Cristal delivers a heartfelt homage to Brazilian Black music and Seventies funk and soul on EPIFANIA. The album unfolds like a curated Broadway musical, that includes grandiose instrumentals and assertive, proclamation-like lyrics like “Obrigada Black”. Cristal nods to Brazilian Black icons like Tony Twister in “Corre”, and combines her fashionable rapping model to soulful ballads like “Redial”.

If any time is well timed for Brazil to mirror on its Blackness, Cristal’s tribute is especially poignant contemplating her roots in southern Brazil, a area usually outlined by its European ancestry relatively than its Black heritage. Cristal reclaims and celebrates Southern Blackness with energy and intention, by means of herself but in addition spotlighting different Black Southern names like reggae singer Paulo Dionísio, who’s featured in “Isso é o que eu soul”. 

9. Joyce Alane — Tudo é minha culpa

Style-wise, Tudo é minha culpa stays inside the acquainted floor of different artists (together with many inf this checklist): a pop stylization of forró, piseiro, pagode, and brega, the place batuque and percussions coexist with synthesizers. Nevertheless, Joyce Alane’s interpretation makes the report stand out. The angsty lyrics are a repeated motif throughout all tracks; Alane sings them sweetly however assertively. For instance, “Agulha do palheiro” is a Sia-like composition sung with a Brazilian Northeastern accent. When she’s collaborating with different artists (like Priscila Senna in “Só não fale” and ÀTTØØXXÁ in “Pra variar”), her contrasting tone provides layers to the drama.