Her accent's on Bahia

Daúde has star quality

by Banning Eyre

Brazil's music market is so vast that just keeping abreast of the country's established artists is a serious job. So when a new Brazilian singer makes a big enough splash to get an American release for her debut album, ears rightly prick up. Daúde (pronounced dah-OOH-gee) now claims a spot in the Brazil bin with her homonymous release on Tinder Records, and if her deep, lustrous voice and roots-to-hip-hop eclecticism can sustain, she should hold on to it.

"We are like a sponge here," she explains over the phone from her home in Rio de Janeiro. "We absorb everything." What's more, nothing gets lost. Even as rap phrasing and hip-hop grooves make their inevitable presence felt in her sound, the tried-and-true funky samba, sensuous bossa, and earthy Afro-Brazilian percussion and chanting remain.

Daúde was born in Bahia, Brazil's most African province, but she moved to Rio as a girl and has stayed there ever since. Both Afro-roots and slick urban polish come across, as in "Véu Vavá," her version of the tune Bahian superstar Carlinos Brown wrote for her father some years back. She throws in a zouk-like rhythm guitar and a staccato, rap-wise B-section, but the song's neat pop hook and deep groove definitely evoke Bahia.

As for her big, tough voice and wide-ranging interpretations of other composers' songs, they inevitably invite comparison to another Bahian diva, Margareth Menezes. When Menezes burst on the scene a few years back, David Byrne at her side, some billed it as a renaissance for the Bahian sound, which Menezes called "samba-reggae." Daúde sees it differently. "Bahian music has always been strong. It was never dated. The reason Margareth Menezes happened was that she had such a determined sound. But right up to today, the most successful Brazilian bands have always come from Bahia: Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Carlinos Brown, Jorge Ben, Dori Caymmi. It's nothing new."

Although Daúde grew up with music, it was only as a teenager that she turned to serious study, training with an opera singer while honing her knowledge of harmony and music theory. She sang in clubs, cafés, and theaters for years before recording. "I got a lot of feedback from the public. So I really knew where I wanted to go when I made this record." The turning point came when the producer Celso Fonseca signed on. "He was the backbone of this record because he's the kind of person who listens a lot to what is happening worldwide in music. At the same time, he has a lot of knowledge of the traditions in Brazilian music. So he was capable of going in all the directions I wanted to go."

That's a lot of directions. "Ah" is dance funk, a nod to James Brown. "Hoke eu quero sair só" is spacious Bahian reggae. "Anna" updates a bossa-nova movie hit with hip-hop overtones. But for all the stylistic jags, it's Daúde's star-quality voice that gives this promising debut its solid center. "All these sounds are parts of my history. I never planned to be eclectic. I became eclectic because I am eclectic."