<\/p>\n
The three-block stretch between Columbus Circle and Grand Army Plaza just on the southern border of Central Park is so busy that it\u2019s hard to know where to look. Near the entrance on 59th street, horse-drawn carriage drivers vie for the attention of tourists, while across the road, serious-looking people in business attire idle in front of the Carnegie Hotel, presumably waiting for someone important.<\/p>\n
The Brazilian singer and songwriter Liniker,<\/a> who has just landed in muggy New York to perform at Lincoln Center\u2019s Brazil Week, has questions: Who are the suits going to meet? Are they famous? And is anyone<\/em> shelling out upwards of $100 for the ride? The more she thinks about it, the less likely it seems that she\u2019ll arrive at an answer, so she opts to capture this tableaux on her film camera instead.<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n As we enter Central Park to find a spot to sit down, she points at a squirrel gripping the side of a tree trunk, and stops to take a picture before it beetles upwards and disappears into the canopy. When another one crops up \u2014 this time on the grass \u2014 she snaps another photo.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like they\u2019re making little waves with their bodies,\u201d Liniker says in Portuguese, wearing a white tiered, maxi skirt and a matching white top. Here in New York, the artist gets to feel anonymous in a way that no longer feels possible back home. In her native Brazil, where her songs rack up millions of streams per month, she has become something of a pop phenomenon.<\/p>\n After training as an actress, Liniker first made a name for herself as the singer for the band Liniker e os Caramelows, but has since left the group. In 2022, her first solo record, the soulful Indigo Borboleta Anil<\/em>, earned her a Latin Grammy award<\/a>, making her the first trans woman to receive the prize. Her latest LP, last year\u2019s CAJU<\/em>, plays with a more varied sonic palette, moving into decidedly pop territory. Melding pagode, hip-hop, samba, and electronica, it has expanded her audience significantly, and pushed her further into the spotlight.<\/p>\n Born in Araraquara, a city north of S\u00e3o Paulo, Liniker, who was named after the British goalie Gary Lineker (it was her soccer-loving uncle\u2019s idea), grew up in a creative family. She found a continuous source of support and inspiration in her mother, a samba dancer who taught her that art could be a form of resistance. \u201cIn spite of everything she went through raising me and my brother by herself,\u201d Liniker says, \u201cshe always gave me the chance to live my life the way I wanted to live it.\u201d<\/p>\n When Liniker and Fejuca, one of her trusted collaborators and a co-producer on both of her solo records met, they bonded over their similar upbringings. \u201cShe comes from a big, musical family and I do too,\u201d he says, calling from his car in between studio sessions in Rio de Janeiro. \u201cAnd so we both experienced these Black Brazilian gatherings where people listen to everything: Tim Maia, Marvin Gaye, Os Racionais.\u201d<\/p>\n In the early stages of making CAJU<\/em>, a concept album based on an imaginary one day trip to Japan, Liniker, Fejuca and co-producer Gustavo Ruiz, knew they wanted to tap into this past, and make the work feel nostalgic. \u201cSo we recorded the whole thing using analog tape,\u201d Fejuca says.<\/p>\n At the park, Liniker tells me she also wanted the work to feel \u201ccinematic.\u201d The trio looked for a way to create a sense of continuity between songs. \u201cIf you listen closely, you\u2019ll hear everyday sounds in all the tracks: there\u2019s a door closing, keys, rain, footsteps, the Japanese flight attendant whose voice opens the record,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Some of these compositions start in Liniker\u2019s journals. \u201cI keep a diary,\u201d she says, \u201cand I also write poems and songs, and letters, mostly by hand.\u201d Her lyrics are personal, introspective, and often a little tongue-in-cheek. \u201cHave you memorized the number of tattoos I have?\u201d she asks a lover, in earnest, in the title track \u201cCAJU\u201d over a smooth R&B beat. \u201cHow many shows are in my schedule? What my favorite album is? How much my heart weighs?\u201d<\/p>\n During the pandemic, the singer Moses Sumney would occasionally go live on Instagram and add people who requested to join. One day, Liniker sent him a request and they struck up a conversation. While he had heard her name around, he wasn\u2019t familiar with her music. Then thousands of Brazilians flooded in and started commenting. \u201cAnd I thought to myself, \u2018I\u2019m clearly very late to this because this person is a huge star,\u2019\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n After they got off the call, Sumney checked out her music and became a fan. \u201cIt\u2019s cool seeing how she combines R&B music with a truly Brazilian aesthetic,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat she does is so beautiful.\u201d The two ended up becoming pen pals and when Sumney was in Brazil earlier this year, Liniker invited him to see one of her shows in Salvador, Bahia. \u201cIt was like seeing Brazilian Beyonc\u00e9,\u201d Sumney says. \u201cThe hair whips, the outfits, the crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n The next time<\/strong> I see Liniker, she\u2019s running around the stage at Damrosch Park in Lincoln Center in an asymmetrical glittery dress and knee high boots, her band members shimmying behind her in lime green outfits. People in the audience are moving, jumping, and singing along. Most aren\u2019t sitting on the chairs the organizers set up for them earlier in the day. It\u2019s clear this is music you can dance to.<\/p>\n Liniker feels emotional being at a venue where so many prominent Brazilian artists have performed over the years. \u201cIt\u2019s such an achievement for any of us to be able to cross the ocean to get to any place that isn\u2019t the place we\u2019re from,\u201d she said to the crowd in Portuguese. \u201cThat applies to us musicians, but it also applies to anyone who has immigrated to a country they weren\u2019t born in dreaming of a better life. When we\u2019re up here, we\u2019re also dreaming a different dream, and I\u2019m so glad that dream fits in the mouths of so many people today.\u201d<\/p>\n Lately, while reflecting on her career, it\u2019s dawned on her that she never wants to take anything for granted. \u201cWhat an honor,\u201d she told the crowd as the night drew to an end and she prepared to leave the stage. \u201cI\u2019m so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The three-block stretch between Columbus Circle and Grand Army Plaza just on the southern border of Central Park is so busy that it\u2019s hard to know where to look. Near the entrance on 59th street, horse-drawn carriage drivers vie for the attention of tourists, while across the road, serious-looking people in business attire idle in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1991812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[355218,360054,360056,360055,339384,360053,360057],"class_list":["post-1991811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-brazil","tag-carnegie-hotel","tag-central-park","tag-columbus-circle","tag-lincoln-center","tag-liniker","tag-moses-sumney"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Liniker-Is-Ready-for-the-Spotlight.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1991811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1991812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1991811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1991811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1991811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}