Daniela Mercury

She recorded a commemorative DVD of Cirque du Soleil's 25th anniversary, and was part of the Montreal Jazz Festival.

In addition, Mercury was invited to participate in the Alejandro Sanz's DVD, and sing with Paul McCartney in Oslo, Norway, during the delivery of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Daniela Mercury (born Daniela Mercuri de Almeida on July 28, 1965) is a Brazilian singer, songwriter, dancer, and producer.

In her solo career, Mercury has sold over 11 million records worldwide, and had 24 Top 10 singles in the country, with 14 of them reached No. 1. Winner of a Latin Grammy for her album Balé Mulato – Ao Vivo, she also received six Brazilian Music Award, an APCA award, three Multishow Brazilian Music Awards and two awards at VMB: Best Music Video and Photography.

Daniela Mercuri de Almeida was born on July 28, 1965, in the Portuguese Hospital in Salvador, Bahia.

Her mother is Liliana Mercuri, a social worker of Italian ancestry, and her father is António Fernando de Abreu Ferreira de Almeida, a Portuguese emigrant industrial mechanic.

Mercury grew up in a middle class household in the Brotas neighborhood of Salvador with her four siblings: Tom, Cristiana, Vânia (who would also become a singer, billed as Vânia Abreu), and Marcos.

A troublemaker as a child, Mercury was nicknamed "drip-fire".

She attended both the Ana Néri School and the Colégio Baiano.

At eight years old, Mercury began taking dance lessons, particularly classical ballet, jazz, and African dances.

At age 13, influenced by the work of Elis Regina, she decided to become a singer.

Her repertoire consisted of bossa nova as well as the music of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Chico Buarque.

To her parents' unease she started singing in local bars in 1980.

She made her trio elétrico debut soon afterward, during the 1981 carnival.

Mercury's zeal for dance eventually led her to the Federal University of Bahia, where she enrolled in the Dance School in 1984.

A year later she married electronic engineer Zalther Póvoas and gave birth to Gabriel Almeida Póvoas.

The next year she gave birth to daughter Giovana Almeida Póvoas.

From 1986 to 1988, Mercury was the lead singer for the band Cheiro de Amor.

Mercury continued to pursue a career in music and, by 1988, was a backup singer for Gilberto Gil.

In 1989, recorded her first two albums as the lead singer of pop band Companhia Clic.

Their songs "Pega que Oh!"

and "Ilha das Bananas" became minor hits in Bahia radio stations.

As the 1990s began, Mercury decided to pursue a solo career.

In 1991, Mercury released her self-titled album, which was followed by O Canto da Cidade a year later, boosting her career as a national artist and taking the axé music to the evidence.

Over the years, Mercury released several albums, generating great singles like "Swing da Cor", "O Canto da Cidade", "À Primeira Vista", "Rapunzel", "Nobre Vagabundo", "Ilê Pérola Negra", "Mutante", "Maimbê Dandá", "Levada Brasileira", "Oyá Por Nós", among others.

Mercury's self-titled debut album was released in 1991 through independent record company Eldorado.

The lead single of the album, "Swing da Cor", which features Olodum, became a number-one hit in Brazil, and the album was soon known as Swing da Cor.

Another song from the album, "Menino do Pelô", which also features Olodum, became Mercury's second top-ten hit in Brazil, charting at number four.

On the following year, Mercury shut off from the record company and, ever since, produces her own albums to negotiate the distribution of them later with the labels that are interested.

In 1992, she presented the project "Som do Meio-Dia" (Midday Sound) at the Art Museum of São Paulo (MASP).

The show brought together over thirty thousand spectators, which eventually leave the traffic jam in the vicinity of the Paulista Avenue.

After forty-minutes concert, Daniela was removed from the stage by representatives of the São Paulo tourist office, that concerned with the museum structure, obtained an order from the military police to remove it from the local.

Soon after the show, Daniela was hired by Sony Music label and through this, released her second solo album, O Canto da Cidade.

The album was considered by journalist André Domingues one of the best MPB albums ever.

O Canto da Cidade is Mercury's album with most number-one songs (four in total; "O Canto da Cidade", "O Mais Belo dos Belos", "Batuque" and "Você Não Entende Nada/Cotidiano").

In 2009 she released her album called Canibália, along with the album, Daniela launched an international tour.

The album spawned three singles: "Preta" with Seu Jorge, "Oyá Por Nós" with Margareth Menezes and "Sol do Sul".

That same year, writer and intellectual Camille Paglia, who had an intellectual "passion" for Madonna, said Daniela Mercury is the artist who Madonna would like to be.

In 2011 the American TV channel CBS, elected Daniela Mercury as the "Carmen Miranda of the new times".

The Canibália album was released in the United States yielded a critique of The New York Times saying: "Daniela Mercury goes beyond the concepts that were stressed during her career (...) with a contemporary pop, embracing ethnic and cultural diversity of Brazil (particularly african-Brazilian culture, while Daniela Mercury is white), remembering the past and transforming it."