CÉU
Genres: World Fusion, Jazz Related Electronica, Hip-Hop, Exotica • Brazil

Céu (Portuguese pronunciation: [sɛu]), whose full name is Maria do Céu Whitaker Poças, is a Brazilian singer-songwriter whose first American album was released on the Six Degrees Records label in April 2007. She was born in São Paulo, Brazil on April 17, 1980, into a musical family, her father being a composer, arranger and musicologist. It was from her father that she learned to appreciate Brazil's classical music composers, particularly Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ernesto Nazaré and Orlando Silva. By age fifteen she had decided to become a musician and by her late teens she had studied music theory, as well as the violão (nylon-stringed Brazilian guitar). Her songs reveal her many influences, which include samba, valsa, choro, soul, rhythm and blues, hip hop, afrobeat and electrojazz music. As Céu herself explained, "I have a passion for Black culture, from Jazz divas to Afro beat. Everything comes from Africa. With Samba, I have a read more...