The second Brazilian pop sensation Liniker walked into Amoeba Music in Hollywood, the crowd roared. Fans lifted their telephones, snapping photos with one hand and clutching her Latin Grammy-winning record on the different, many still buzzing from watching her efficiency at the awards present days earlier.
The Latin Grammys had been one in every of the largest nights of the singer and songwriter’s profession — for the second time. In 2022, Liniker was the first-ever out transgender artist to win a Latin Grammy. In 2025, she entered the ceremony with seven nominations, the most ever for a Brazilian artist, and walked away with three main wins in classes honoring music in her native language – Portuguese-language up to date pop album, music and concrete efficiency.
Her breakthrough album “Caju” — a daring fusion of Brazilian groove-based pop, neo-soul, samba, disco, and jazz — has turned her into one in every of the most celebrated Brazilian artists of the decade. Critics from the LA Times to Rolling Stone have praised the mission’s intimacy and ambition. Over the previous couple years, she has collaborated with giants of Brazilian music like Milton Nascimento and the late Elza Soares, and took the stage in entrance of two million folks in Copacabana after Lady Gaga’s historic concert in May.
“I’ve been living a life of dreams – receiving awards, being successful, being a huge artist in my country and now I’m starting my career out of Brazil, but I know my reality, and I know the reality of my community,” Liniker informed NCS in an interview earlier than her document retailer occasion.
Liniker, born Liniker de Barros Ferreira Campos and named after English soccer star Gary Lineker, was raised in a house the place samba, rock, and soul had been all the time enjoying. Her working-class household lived in Araraquara, a metropolis of 250,000 simply exterior the edges of São Paulo’s cultural attain.
Black, trans, and from a modest upbringing, her stardom is exceptional in any context, but in Brazil, the place the lives of Black trans girls are so usually marked by hazard somewhat than risk, it feels nothing wanting astonishing.
Brazil holds a stark and somber distinction: It is the deadliest nation in the world for transgender folks, in accordance to the National Registry of Trans Deaths compiled by Rede Trans Brasil, a nonprofit group advocating for trans rights.
The report documented 105 killings in 2024, but that quantity is extensively understood to be an undercount. Data is compiled from publicly out there info comparable to native media reviews, social media posts, and police reviews, but these usually fail to register a sufferer’s gender identification, and lots of deaths possible by no means make it into the dataset in any respect. Most of the victims had been younger, Black and poor.
None of that is misplaced on Liniker. As the awards and recognition push her into the highlight, she stated she has to remind herself to “not be delusional.”
“Fame doesn’t exempt me from being subjected to violence — whether online or in the streets,” she stated. “Even though today I have a structure around me — a team that protects me, security, all these things that many people from my reality, from my community, don’t have — none of that changes the fact that I’m a trans person.”
And on-line, she stated, there is no approach to brace for the backlash.
“It’s awful, because with every victory, the wave of praise comes mixed with an equal wave of violence and harassment,” she stated.
The extra seen she turns into, the harsher the feedback, the stalking, the threats.
“I thought I was protected, but now I know I’m not. The more I go into the light, the more the violence comes to me too.”
At 30, Liniker is celebrating 4 Latin Grammys — a milestone many artists wait a lifetime to attain — but, she admits the duality is dizzying. The glamour, the world levels, the adoring followers at Amoeba; and, at the similar time, a rustic the place folks like her are routinely focused.
“Being recognized as a songwriter, someone who writes her own story, in a country that kills the most trans and Black people in the world… that carries a weight,” she stated.
Liniker sees her work — writing, singing, composing — as an act of providing, a approach of sending love outward, even when hostility circles again. Even in her most energetic songs, like “Negona dos Olhos Terríveis,” (Black lady with horrible eyes, in Portuguese), which she carried out at the Latin Grammys, her sound is still comfortable, touchdown like a feather and by no means harsh.
The epitome of this model could be heard in the monitor “Veludo Marrom,” (Brown Velvet), which was written and co-produced by Liniker and one in every of the tracks that gained her a Latin Grammy.
The seven-minute ballad opens with a jazzy guitar, and Liniker’s heat timbre slowly builds up, with sprinkles of birdsong, singing: “I don’t feel like letting go / but I want to make peace from the days / to make a big to-do about your smile / I don’t care, we can take our time.”
The description of an intimate lazy morning with a lover slowly turns brighter as she recites music verses nearly like prayer. With every line, a brand new layer of devices from Brasil Jazz Sinfônica Orchestra joins in; piano, then strings, drums, and eventually, a full choir, taking the music from private to common, from bodily to ethereal.
Her music has drawn the admiration of artists throughout the world.
Sophie Hawley-Weld, of the Electronic duo Sofi Tukker, who collaborated with Liniker on a music earlier this yr, stated “she has the aura of someone who knows herself profoundly and has a rich spiritual life.”
“Her voice and music reflect the same,” Hawley-Weld stated.
Fellow Brazilian singer and songwriter Catto thinks the universality of Liniker’s music is accountable for her success. “This record touches people’s hearts, and that’s why she can take it to the whole world,” Catto informed NCS on the cellphone from São Paulo.
Catto, a rising star with powerhouse vocals and long-standing presence in Brazil’s LGBTQ+ cultural scene, stated watching Liniker’s success feels each private and historic.
“There’s the side that’s about representation, which is so important for our community,” Catto stated. “But there’s also the personal side: I’m her friend. I know how deeply this win comes from her life, her journey.”
But Liniker’s significance doesn’t start or finish with identification, she emphasised.
“The fact that she’s a trans woman is, in a way, a detail. And at the same time, the fact that she is a trans woman means everything to us,” she stated. “But she doesn’t need a label. Her music speaks for itself.”
That admiration is shared extensively in Brazil’s inventive circles, but the response from mainstream audiences has been simply as putting.
In May, Liniker spent a morning on stay tv with Ana Maria Braga, a talk-show host on a beloved morning present whose impression on Brazilian tradition is usually in contrast to Martha Stewart’s in the United States.
A slender lady in her 60s with quick blonde hair, Braga sat beside Liniker on a set designed to appear to be a household breakfast desk as the singer mirrored on her 11-year musical profession, her private journey and her household life. Between dialog breaks, Liniker carried out — her velvety voice flowing into thousands and thousands of Brazilian houses.
As viewers despatched in feedback by the present’s on-line channels, Braga learn just a few aloud.
“Ana Maria is charmed by Liniker, just like us. So beautiful to see her in this place getting all this recognition,” she learn, her voice breaking. Then, holding again tears and looking out into Liniker’s eyes, she informed the singer, “We meet so many people in this life, but sometimes we meet people, you know?”
Before shifting on, Braga learn one final message: “Society needs to see trans people on TV, doing cool things, showing their genuine talent, so that the masks of prejudice may fall.”
Braga paused after concluding and spoke to the viewers who had written in. “I have nothing else to say … you’ve said it all.”
For Liniker, the sentiment resonates deeply.
“We need to be recognized as human beings,” she stated. “It’s not even about acceptance; we don’t need acceptance. What we’re asking for is the most basic thing: respect.”
Back at the document retailer surrounded by followers, Liniker posed for selfies, signed vinyl data and listened patiently as folks shared their tales as her album performed on the audio system. The first individual in line — a younger fan who appeared to be of their 20s — informed her that Liniker had impressed her to study to sing.
Her message to the Black, trans, or queer youth who’re watching her star rise, Liniker stated, is easy: “Be kind with yourself and respect your soul, always.”