--- --- Oct 30, 2025 # Alok Petrillo Musician by [Esha Chhabra](https://time.com/author/esha-chhabra/) ## Esha Chhabra  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Photo: Valerie Macon—AFP/Getty Images) Alok Achkar Peres Petrillo, better known as DJ Alok by his fans, is the most-streamed Brazilian artist internationally. He has more than 7.3 billion Spotify streams and an audience of more than 85 million on social media. But in recent years, he’s focused his music on an important cause: supporting Indigenous rights and the protection of the Amazon rain forest. What began as a personal journey of healing in 2014 for him, while he was going through a period of depression, has evolved into a collaboration that brings Amazonian voices to the world's most prestigious stages: the United Nations, the Latin Grammys, and Global Citizen festivals. After visiting an Indigenous community in the Amazon, Alok says he began to rethink the role of music: instead of creating music for commercial success, Indigenous communities were "doing songs for healing,” he says. This revelation led to _The Future is Ancestral_, an album co-created with eight different Indigenous communities, which received a nomination at the Latin Grammy Awards in 2024, fundamentally changing how Brazilians view their Indigenous populations. "If you want to co-create a regenerative future,” Alok says, “we need to get the wisdom and knowledge of the Indigenous people." All proceeds and royalties from the album went to benefit the communities featured. And after working with DJ Alok, several Indigenous collaborators have entered Brazilian politics—including Sônia Guajajara who became Brazil’s first Indigenous minister. “It was beautiful to see how strong they are now… they're becoming the leadership,” Alok says. He's now collaborating with NATURE, an initiative by U.N. Live, enabling fans to combat the biodiversity crisis in the Amazon, simply by listening. Gabriel Smales, global program director of U.N. Live’s Sounds Right, who has been collaborating with DJ Alok says: "The Amazon—one of the lungs of the Earth—is losing its voice. With his global reach, Alok is helping it sing again—joining forces with young Indigenous musicians, weaving forest sounds into his music, and even crediting Nature itself so that resources flow back to Indigenous- and community-led conservation." Alok Petrillo: The 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326623/dj-alok/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326623/dj-alok/"},"headline":"Alok Petrillo","datePublished":"2025-10-30T11:30:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T01:02:02.446Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326623/dj-alok/","keywords":["TIME100 Climate 2025","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt43c2ec5e71cc0f34/6998caff25f3ee14356451fc/Catalyst-DJ-Alok.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Esha Chhabra","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/esha-chhabra/"}],"creator":"Esha Chhabra","articleSection":"Climate","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt43c2ec5e71cc0f34/6998caff25f3ee14356451fc/Catalyst-DJ-Alok.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/climate/","name":"Climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time100-climate-2025/","name":"TIME100 Climate 2025"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326623/dj-alok/","name":"Alok Petrillo"}}]}] ```