She was born in
Salvador,
Brazil. The oldest of three siblings, Daúde lived with her family in Salvador until the age of 11, when her family moved to
Rio de Janeiro. She began her Voice studies under baritone Paulo Fortes at the Instituto Villa-Lobos and studied Theatre at the Escola de Teatro Martins Penna. Daúde began her musical career singing in plays and nightclubs, and received an invitation to record her first studio album. She recorded her first CD,
Daúde, with Natasha Records in 1995.
Daúde featured 13 tracks including covers of songs from artists such as
Jorge Ben Jor,
Carlinhos Brown,
Caetano Veloso, and
Lenine, mixing styles such as
Funk,
Soul,
Hip Hop,
Pop, and
Samba. She received critical acclaim, winning the
Sharp Awards from the
APCA (São Paulo Association of Art Critics) and the
Jornal do Brasil Readers' Award. Two years later, in 1997, she released her second CD titled
Daúde #2, featuring bassist
Arthur Maia, multi-instrumentalist
Celso Fonseca, and English producer and keyboardist Will Mowat. The album brought together influences of Samba, MPB, and Rumba, and launched Daúde to great success on the radio due to her Portuguese language interpretation of the hit Pata Pata, originally recorded by the South African singer
Miram Makeba. The success of this album allowed her to tour principal Brazilian cities, and travel internationally to the United States, Europe, and Japan. In 1999, she released
Simbora, including dance remixes of earlier songs. The production fuses authentic Daúde,
MPB, and electronic music, thus highlighting the importance of DJs and producers as creative partners. Daúde was the first Brazilian signed by
Peter Gabriel's
Real World Records. Her 2003 album
Neguinha, Te Amo honored Black women and Afro-Brazilian culture as it transcended stereotypes of Brazilian music, helping increase international attention to Brazilian music. In 2014, Daúde released her fifth album,
Código Daúde, with Lab 344 featuring high-energy covers of Brazilian standards. With a production that happened organically over the years, the album features tracks of covers of songs by
Alceu Valença,
Nelson Sargento and
Marcos Valle. Mixing popular and typically Brazilian rhythms, Daúde has built a career taking worldwide elements of Brazilian culture and art that blend with tributes to the roots and origins of Afro-Brazilian blackness, in the same way that she creates and thinks her art to break racist stereotypes and build new imaginaries in people's minds regarding blackness. == Discography ==