That's what singer Daniela Mercury calls herself. She is a Brazilian superstar who fuses traditional music with electronica, hip-hop and whatever else moves her body and soul. Now she is out to grab new audiences.
By LISSETTE CORSA
Published June 26, 2003
[AP photo]
Daniela Mercury, a star in her country for more than a decade, performs during Brazil night at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland last July.
When Brazilian pop diva Daniela Mercury set out to produce her latest release, Eletrodomestico, on CD and DVD, she figured that a live recording would be ideal to capture her high-energy stage act.
So the musician known as much for her ballads as her samba, and for her love of electronica as well as traditional Brazilian beats, struck the balance she sought with 17 musicians and seven guest performers ranging from Italian hip-hop sensation Lorenzo Jovanotti to Spain's Rosario Flores. But the experience last January in her hometown, Salvador de Bahia, left Mercury frazzled.
"I'll never do it again," she said and laughed over the telephone from Brazil, speaking in Portuguese (she also speaks Spanish and English but prefers to conduct phone interviews in her native language). "It's crazy."
Mercury performs for the first time in Tampa on Saturday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, wrapping up a tour that has included the Playboy Jazz Festival in Hollywood, Calif.; San Francisco; Boston; and New York. She starts a European tour next month.
Mercury, 37, found fame first as the muse of axe music (pronounced ashe, it's an Afro-Brazilian beat from Bahia) during its height in the early '90s and also became known as the queen of samba-reggae. She began her career as a star of trios eletricos, a sort of lavish float carrying musicians and dancers playing to the throngs during Salvador's street carnival.
Today, she defies easy labeling.
"I'm constantly searching for new ways to make Brazilian music," Mercury said. "In Brazil, we have a rich musical variety, and this creates a wide universe to choose from. Classifications are very limiting. It makes me feel tied to a genre that doesn't say everything about my work, yet at the same time it makes me feel proud because I love axe music, even though music coming out of Bahia is so much more complex. I want people to listen to my music with an open mind."
Eletrodomestico is testimony to Mercury's work in preserving her musical roots while embracing foreign influences. The title hints at this dichotomy. It's a fusion of international electronic music and Brazil's domestic style of percussion, Mercury said. Yet the melodies are soft and subtle. At times the album is acoustic with an electric edge; some songs create an ambience of lounge music.
"It's music without much exaggeration," Mercury said. "It's free, and it has spontaneity to it. I didn't worry about excesses in fusion. This album provokes electronic music."
Born into a middle class family in Salvador, Mercury's first career goal, at age 10, was to become a professional dancer. "I love to dance, and in my soul I continue to be a ballerina," she said. "I tried a little to stay away from this, but I can't escape it."
By 16, Mercury was singing in bars while continuing to pursue dancing, which she studied in college. In 1986, she scaled the trios eletricos as a singer during Carnaval. Then she formed a band and performed until she got a job singing backup for Brazilian singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil.
By 1990, she was a solo artist and hit big in 1992 with the single Swing Da Cor (Color Swing). Her second album, O Canto da Cidade (The Song of the City), an ode to Salvador, that made her a superstar. It became the first album in Brazil to sell more than a million copies.
Her 2000 album, Sol da Liberdade (Sun of Liberty), teamed her with leading Latin producer Emilio Estefan Jr., husband and producer of Gloria Estefan, and raised her profile in the United States with a subsequent tour. In 1997, she played New York's Lincoln Center to rave reviews.
She now has recorded nine albums, to international acclaim. But she has only recently decided that singing, not dancing, is her true calling.
"Now I know I will always sing," she said. "I don't know if it will be with the same purpose because, honestly, it's hard. There's a lot of pressure. Sometimes it gets to be a burden because there's a lot of stress involved. I'm scared of being too successful because there's no time to live. It's like a hurricane."
But Mercury's dancing days are not over. Her concerts are famous for their choreography.
"As a dancer, I'm inclined to make records with a percussive backdrop, records that have rhythm," Mercury said.
Her songs are a celebration of Salvador, of love, life and women. Sometimes they are tinged with social commentary, but the music comes first.
"I believe in getting a reaction from people through music that is aesthetically valid, not through a cry of indignation," she said. "I don't get involved in political campaigns, so I feel free to use my music in subtle ways to bring about change. For instance, I sing a lot about black pride, and that's a way of combating racism."
She is very excited about reaching new audiences on this tour.
"I want people to walk away remembering that I had a lot of energy in my soul and that I gave it all to them," Mercury said. "I want them to remember that I'm Brazilian, that I smiled, that my work is not easy, and that I'm an artist of the world wanting to bring out people's emotions and have them join me in the celebration of life through dance because life is worth living."
PREVIEW: Daniela Mercury, 8 p.m. Saturday, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, 1010 N W.C. MacInnes Place, Tampa. $19-$39. (813) 229-7827, (813) 287-8844 or (727) 898-2100.
