On Wednesday, Sept. 23, Anitta performed from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for The Tonight Show with the skyline of the city as the backdrop. The performance followed all the new guidelines brought by the novel coronavirus as her team was socially distanced and the six backup dancers were wearing masks. 

Behind the performance, hologram projections of  both Cardi B and Myke Towers appeared during their guest features on the song.

The song itself is a celebration of Afro-Brazilians and is meant to showcase their power outside of the mainstream narrative of prejudice.

In an interview with NBC News, Anitta shared that she's suffered through major prejudice in her career because she comes from a poor area, what may be called ‘favelas’ in Brazil. The goal of all her music is to put those experiences on a platform for the world. 

“If I can do something to try to make the next people who come after not go through the things that I went through — for me, that's amazing,” she said.

Anitta has been a rising artist for the last six years, and has broken through in the genre of Latin urban music, which is predominantly male run. With her fame though, she is using it to shine a light on communities in Brazil like the one she’s from. 

The music video for “Me Gusta,” which was filmed in pre-pandemic Salvador, Bahia’s capital, is the same place where Michael Jackson shot his music video for “They Don’t Really Care About Us.”

Anitta also told NBC she hired an expert on Afro-Brazilian history to better showcase their roots and display the beauty of women, Afro-Latinos, and LGBTQ people who live in these communities. 

This is especially important when Brazil’s president has repeatedly used homophobic slurs, racist comments, and the poor leadership he’s displayed during the coronavirus pandemic — Brazil has one of the highest death and infection rates from the virus in the world.. 

“We are transforming this place into a positive thing, exalting all the good things these people have,” said Anitta.