THE MTV acoustic by Manu Gavassi in tribute to the album “Forbidden Fruit” by Rita Lee arrives this Thursday (2) at Paramount +.

The production marks the return of a successful MTV series, where artists perform their songs in acoustic version.

In an interview with CNN Manu revealed why he chose, unlike the last versions, to pay homage and sing “Forbidden Fruit” .

“It was a wish I had for a long time because I’m a big fan of Rita. Besides being my favorite album of hers, it’s very significant for her career. I see it as an emancipation of Rita after the Mutantes. From there, she took complete autonomy of her career and it was elevated to another level”, she explained.

“I think my identification at this point in my life with this album made me take this courage to take this idea forward to MTV”, he added.

In a small theater, the singer merged two universes, creating a meeting between 30-year-old Rita when she released the album in 1975 and 30-year-old Manu in 2023.

“A lot of things in my last few projects, I referenced a lot of things she had already done. It wasn’t difficult to bring these two worlds together in a way that this interpretation of her work made sense now for me and didn’t become mimicry or cosplay”, she said.

All the preparation and recording took place in a month and Manu spoke to the CNN about this process.

“One of the things that made me most insecure was that. Generally, to record a show like this you have a lot of rehearsals and you also have a lot of intimacy with the songs you are going to record. I had intimacy listening to the songs, I had never sung them for real”, he said.

“The pitches are much higher than what I sing, there’s a lot more screaming, things I usually don’t do with my voice. For fear of taking risks, it made me a lot bigger as an artist”, he added.

Manu had the participation of other artists for the tribute. Among them: Liniker and Tim Bernardes.

“As a fan of both, it’s very surreal to have them with me on this project,” he said.

It was a big dream

Manu Gavassi