Brazil’s Carnival Crowned a New Pop Star. She’s 19

On Monday, the second day of Carnival, two of the ten most-played songs on Spotify Brazil belonged to the same 19-year-old. Melody — born Gabriela Severino in São Paulo — held the #1 spot with Jetski, a collaboration with DJ Pedro Sampaio and MC Meno K, and the #10 position with Desliza, a track with Bahian star Léo Santana. No other artist managed to place two songs simultaneously in the Carnival Top 10.

Jetski, in particular, has crossed borders. Released in December 2025 as Pedro Sampaio’s debut on Sony Music, it peaked at #97 on the Billboard Global 200 — the worldwide chart measuring streams and sales across 200 countries — and spent five consecutive weeks on the ranking, generating over 1.2 million daily Spotify streams in Brazil alone. Desliza, released in May 2025, surpassed 70 million total streams before Carnival started, propelled by TikTok choreographies that spread through the Brazilian summer.

From meme to mainstream

Melody’s career is inseparable from the internet — and from controversy. She went viral in 2015 at age eight, posting videos attempting to replicate Mariah Carey’s falsettes. The clips became some of Brazil‘s most shared memes. Her father, the funk singer known as MC Belinho, became her manager and began releasing music under her name. That same year, Brazil’s Labor Prosecutors opened an investigation into suspected child labor and sexualization of a minor, resulting in a conduct agreement requiring Belinho to ensure his daughter’s career respected her physical and psychological development.

The controversies continued through adolescence: public feuds with Anitta, debates about age-appropriate content, a celebrity influencer paying for therapy sessions after criticizing her father’s management. Through it all, Melody kept releasing music. In 2022, still 15, she became the youngest artist to reach #1 on Spotify Brazil with Pipoco, a sertanejo-funk crossover with Ana Castela.

The comparison to Anitta is inevitable but premature. Anitta built a global brand, singing in four languages, charting on the Billboard Hot 100, performing at Coachella. Melody’s success remains overwhelmingly domestic, driven by Brazil’s massive streaming market and the seasonal machinery of Carnival. What she shares with Anitta is the origin story: a working-class girl from São Paulo who understood, younger than anyone, that in the algorithmic age, visibility is the product. The music comes second. Whether that changes is the only question that matters. This is part of The Rio Times’ daily coverage of Brazil city news for expats and the international community.

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