Janeiro

It was 4am on a Monday and most of Rio de Janeiro was asleep. But in the Morro do 77, a favela on the gritty westside of town, the party was just getting under way as hundreds of revellers packed the community’s main thoroughfare to strut their stuff before a three-metre (10ft) wall of sound.Speakers and subwoofers pumped ear-shattering favela funk music into the dawn air. Partygoers drank pint-sized cups of whiskey and frozen coconut water. And as heads bobbed, bodies twerked and window panes shook, the rave’s unexpected…

Sunday night was an emotional one for Taylor Swift, as she returned to the stage after the death of a fan prior to her concert in Rio de Janeiro on Friday. Although Swift did not specifically mention Ana Clara Benevides on Sunday night, the inclusion of the song “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” was speculated to be in honor of the college student.  As part of her “Surprise Song” segment, Swift live debuted the ambient ballad about grief and heartache.  “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, You were bigger than the whole…

A fan died at Taylor Swift’s Rio de Janeiro concert Friday night, during a record-breaking heat wave. Ana Clara Benevides, a 23-year old psychology student, fainted in the front row of the concert and was given 40 minutes of CPR on-site before being taken to the hospital, where she died, her friend Thiago Fernandes told the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.According to Folha, the heat index at the Estàdio Nilton Santos reached 140 degrees, causing a thousand fans to faint, per an unofficial firefighter count. Videos…