http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/posts/vanessa-da-mata-blog 2012-2-04T22:15:44Z The crowd that was watching Jack Johnson playing at the Festival Natura Nós - that happened in São Paulo in may 2011, had a pleasant surprise.<br /> At the end of the show he called Vanessa to join him on stage.<br /> Together they sang the music "Mas Que Nada" by Jorge Ben.<br /> <br /> Watch the rehearsal just minutes before the show! http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/backstage-vanessa-and-jack-johnson 2011-9-14T17:53:24Z Everybody knows the song “Boa Sorte / Good Luck” that Vanessa sings with the international well known musician Ben Harper. But aren’t you curious about the meaning of this lyric and other songs of her?<br /> <br /> Well, we have the solution!<a href="http://lyricstranslate.com/en/vanessa-da-mata-lyrics.html" target=_blank> Check it out this site</a> that translates all her lyrics from Portuguese to English. You have no more excuses to understand the real meaning of her words ! http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/curious 2011-9-06T17:52:10Z Vanessa talks about her new songs:<br /> <br /> "Moro Longe" has a touch of the North. The person portrayed is very practical, very objective... Kind of... “look, it’s cool, I’ll come to your place but I don’t want anything small, I want you to show me a great time!!” She negotiates in practical and self-assured terms, that’s part of her charm. There’s no romance. It’s just wonderful deal making, “If I come there, you’ve got to make it worthwhile”. She’s very percussive. We tried several arrangements and this one was the best, for sure. http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/track-by-track-moro-longe 2011-5-12T14:26:06Z Vanessa talks about her new songs:<br /> <br /> This song has a special meaning for men... Two guys who heard it during the recordings were so impressed they went back to their girlfriends... “Ah, I’m feeling something... She says exactly that to him... Be sure to eat well, to sleep well”, which is how women shoe they care. I wrote this song thinking of a hidden concern someone has and it came in handy. It’s a sweet song but it can also be quite bitter. http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/track-by-track-ve-se-fica-bem 2011-3-28T14:56:35Z Vanessa talks about her new songs:<br /> <br /> I’ve always liked catcalls, I think they’re popular and appropriate for women who are voluptuous. I wanted to underline the contradiction that happens today. You’re a woman, who do you want to look beautiful for? Men or women? It all depends. If you want to hear a catcall it’s best to be more “on the chubby side”. If you want to be fashionable, fashion is feminine, you need to be thin, but how thin? That’s what this song is about. http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/track-by-track-fiu-fiu 2011-3-16T12:22:01Z Vanessa talks about her new songs:<br /> <br /> I don’t like to talk about what each song means to me because that ends up restricting people’s imagination. I would like each person to absorb the song and feel its taste in his or her own manner. As Palavras is about this, how each word has a different meaning, its energy... If sin didn’t mean sin, it could mean love... It depends on what you understand by it. This song has an aftertaste of Roberto Carlos in my mouth, when I sing it, I remember him a lot. http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/track-by-track-as-palavras 2011-2-25T16:24:07Z Vanessa talks about her new songs:<br /> <br /> It sounds like the last song of a show, totally aimed at the moon. In the album’s sleeve, there’s my grandmother Vó Sinhá’s recipe for fubá (corn meal) cake, it’s one more tribute I pay her... It’s is the family cake. It’s a private joke, a song that’s great fun, the title of the album. I talk about the bicycle, the cake, the need to share with others. I always talk about the sweets, the food. I was raised by a granny who could cook and every afternoon she lay the table with cakes and other goodies for people to help themselves.<br /> <br /> So that’s it: “Who says throwing tantrums doesn’t work? Who says sugar and love can’t heal?". I am quoting from memory some lines from the song “Com Açúcar, com Afeto”, by Chico Buarque. That’s exactly what it was like at my grandma’s house, love was handed to us together with the sweets. Our family lived by that. http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/track-by-track-bicicletas-bolos-e-outras-alegrias 2011-2-17T14:13:53Z Vanessa talks about her new songs:<br /> <br /> Meu Aniversário - My Birthday - was written on my birthday, February 10th, in Bahia. <br /> I was in a very good mood, as I always am on my birthdays! I love my birthday! Some people feel down about their birthdays, all they remember is that they are getting older. I love mine! There’s always a party, I feel like it’s a special day. I think it’s incredible, I go out and have fun, I really think it’s my day! I always want to celebrate. That’s why I wrote My birthday. For me, so I can say "happy birthday me"! http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/track-by-track-meu-aniversario 2011-2-09T18:20:18Z "Bicicletas, Bolos e Outras Alegrias is Vanessa da Mata’s fourth studio album and one of the best Lusophone records I’ve heard all year. Once again, the production quality on this album is top notch, even more so than Sim, and listening to them on quality headphones is an experience in and of itself. It’s often said that MPB (Brazilian Popular Music) is a bit stale and repetitive but this is one of those albums that comes out every six months or so and stuns us all. It highlights Vanessa’s uniqueness and freedom in a way that Sim was unable to do. This record has rock, reggae, samba, bossa, a dash of electronica and a lot of attitude".<br /> <br /> <a href="http://lusotunes.blogspot.com/2010/12/bicicletas-bolos-e-outras-alegrias-by.html" target=_blank>Read more in Caipirinha Lounge</a> http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/bicicletas-bolos-e-outras-alegrias-by-vanessa-da-mata 2011-1-22T16:09:45Z Vanessa talks about her new songs:<br /> <br /> Te Amo<br /> Every time I listened to the song “Primavera”, I’d think it was incredible and would ask myself: how could Tim Maia take such a kitschy, cliché expression and write that beautiful song... ? I would love to write a song with an “I Love you”, but that also had this “clichê ideal”, that promised more, like this song does. There’s no comparison, but I would like it to make people identify themselves with it and dive in. I’d like it to say something about this fear that everyone has of giving themselves, of letting themselves go, because this is what the record is about. <br /> <br /> I love the strings that rock this song. They are romantic, colorful, imagistic…The arrangement was all there from beginning to end. http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/track-by-track-te-amo 2011-1-22T14:37:42Z Vanessa talks about her new songs:<br /> <br /> <strong>O Tal Casal</strong><br /> This song is blatantly romantic. I remember something someone in my family would say when I was a kid: "He I love doesn’t love me, he who loves me I sent away" or "no one loves me, no one wants me, I’ll take my vows and be a nun". When I wrote it, I thought this song could be the opposite of this, romantic and well rounded off.<br /> <br /> I like the arrangement a lot, Marcelo Jeneci does a great job together with the band from beginning to end. What I like about it is that it starts softly and builds up, especially from the middle towards the end, growing in a different way from your normal arrangement that usually opens with everything it’s got. <br /> <br /> We added some strings that make it grander.. The strings, the violin usually add a touch of glamour to a song, especially love songs. The strings draw a line as if they were floating inside the harmony. I think it’s really very beautiful!<br /> Vanessa da mata, October 2010<br /> http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/track-by-track-by-vanessa-o-tal-casal 2010-11-16T17:30:40Z Mia Couto is considered one of the leading writers of Mozambique. He is a good friend of Vanessa and was invited to write a piece about her new album "Bicicletas, Bolos e outras alegrias". Read this beautiful article here:<br /> <br /> "Lightness is the word. After listening to Vanessa da Mata’s new record that’s the word that floats inside me, as I myself, rid of weight and other gravities, feel capable of dreaming and traveling. Understanding is not exactly what we seek after this flood. However, I believe that this lightness arises from Vanessa’s talent to weave word and sounds, as if she knows that poetry and music are two names from the same divine language. This new work by Vanessa is a carpet made from many threads, as if her own life were woven from many lives. I quote the lady herself "words that pray", words that are meant to be spoken by the body, songs that are meant to be poetry.<br /> <br /> I arranged with Vanessa to write some lines for this record when a week ago, I was leaving Brazil to go to Moçambique. During the trip back, I realized I had to get to know more about the work of this artist who is young but already a well known Brazilian composer and singer. However, what I already knew about her had already led me to accept the task, like an eager adolescent. I had met the singer the year before at a restaurant in Rio. At the time, I was already in love with her songs that grabbed me by the waist and led me off on poetical wanderings.<br /> <br /> That night, we dined with friends and became friends. Vanessa was getting ready for a show that would take place a few hours later. At that moment I thought: if it were me, on the night before a show I’d be dead scared. But there she was, complete and serene, as if soon she wasn’t going to walking over hot burning coals. The explanation for such serenity was not what one might call professional knowhow. Vanessa would sing with the same naturalness that she showed there speaking words and weaving memories. I was left with an indelible impression of luminosity, as if her being confirmed the lyrics of one of her own songs "the morning comes, comes, comes...". <br /> <br /> Her soul and her voice lives an eternal morning. This woman who Maria Bethânia had already called an "imperial palm tree" had the same effect on me as the frond of a palm tree: a restful frontier between shade and sun.<br /> <br /> I told Vanessa that this short text of mine would be merely the confession of a feeling, an impression by someone who knows no more than to convert life into an endless act of listening. That’s how I came to listen to Vanessa’s record. Maybe "listen" is not the right verb. One must take the opportunity made of speech and song, this rocking that makes us dance to the lines.<br /> <br /> In this new work, it’s hard to see a definite musical pattern. The mixtures are intentional, several and plural, from a wink at popular traditional Brazilian music to flirting with the Africa I call home. But there is a constant element that is more important than this diversity. The allusion to luminosity, the moon, the sun, is recurrent on most of the tracks. And this confirms everything I remember: to breathe, Vanessa comes up for light. And to make us breathe not air but light. Every song is a window. That opens up to the inner side of the Sun".<br /> Mia Couto, <br /> Maputo, September 2010<br /> http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/her-soul-and-her-voice-lives-an-eternal-morning 2010-11-10T19:28:17Z Vanessa is releasing her new album. "Bicicletas, Bolos e Outras Alegrias" (Bikes, Cakes and Other Joys) was produced by Kassin and mixed by Mario Caldato.<br /> <br /> The album has 12 new tracks, one partnership with Gilberto Gil, <a href="http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/track/quando-amanhecer" target=_blank>"Quando Amanhecer" </a>and one with Lokua Kanza, <a href="http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/track/va" target=_blank>"Vá" </a>. http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/new-cd-bicicletas-bolos-e-outras-alegrias 2010-10-07T20:00:28Z Vanessa has a new video clip for the song "Minha Herança Uma Flor".<br /> <br /> The film was directed by Gustavo Guimarães and uses stop motion animation technique. http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/new-video-clip-1 2010-6-18T16:22:31Z The Public Radio International program The World ran a great CD review of "Sim".<br /> <br /> The World airs on over 350 National Public Radio stations nationwide.<br /> <br /> Listen <a href="http://www.theworld.org/?s=Vanessa+da+Mata" target=_blank>here.</a> http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/on-the-air 2009-12-04T17:02:41Z Discos 605/Red Distribution release of “Sim” (Yes) marks the US debut of chart-topping Brazilian singer and songwriter Vanessa da Mata. “Sim” won a Latin Grammy award in 2008 for Best Brazilian Contemporary Pop Album. The album track “Boa Sorte/Good Luck”, a reggae-inflected duet with Ben Harper, was a smash hit throughout Europe in 2008 and a number one single in Brazil. An English version of “Vermelho” (Red) was recorded for the US release and “Boa Sorte/Good Luck”, originally recorded in Portuguese and English, appears in an all-English version.<br /> <br /> In a crowded field of young Brazilian singers, Vanessa stands out for her authenticity and earthiness born of a childhood in the inland state of Mato Grosso. There were no existing bands in her small town of Altos Garças. “I was completely unschooled in music,” she recalls. At age fourteen she found herself on-stage at an open-mic session where her unforgettable throaty voice enthralled the crowd. <br /> <br /> Nonetheless, Vanessa’s parents sent her to the neighboring state of Minas Gerais to study medicine at age 15. But life had a different plan for the charismatic young woman who, although she tried her hand as a basketball player and fashion model, found early musical success as a songwriter, penning hits for Chico César, Maria Bethânia and Caetano Veloso, and Daniela Mercury. “It was difficult, as a woman, to call myself a composer. It was so unusual in Brazil,” explains Vanessa. She also began a professional singing career as a backing vocalist for the likes of Milton Nascimento, Bethânia and the late Baden Powell. In 2002, Vanessa released a self-titled debut album followed by the 2004 release “Essa Boneca Tem Manual” (This Doll Comes with a Manual). “Sim” is her third studio album. With an enviable string of number one singles and three top-charting albums, Vanessa da Mata is one of the biggest selling Brazilian artists today.<br /> <br /> “Sim” is a Brazilian pop record with a Jamaican accent. This captivating collection of songs traces two musical trajectories – a full-on embrace of Jamaican grooves on the one hand and a contemporary mix of bossa-nova, samba and MPB on the other. The singer chose the album title, she says, to describe “…a positive answer to life. A fighting response.” <br /> <br /> Ben Harper first heard the melody line of “Boa Sorte/Good Luck” over the telephone in Los Angeles. “This was one of the most organic sessions I’ve ever worked on,” says the rootsy American bluesman. “It was almost too easy. It’s the first time this has happened with someone I didn’t know.” “The song was really missing something until Ben got involved,” adds Vanessa. Ironically, the incredible musical relationship made possible by technology produced a song that talks about a painful break-up.<br /> About half of “Sim” was recorded in Kingston, with the participation of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare on five of the album’s tracks. This wasn’t the first time Vanessa had collaborated with the fabled duo. At the age of nineteen, she had worked as a back-up singer for Black Uhuru on their 1995 tour of Brazil. Bob Marley percussionist Sticky also joined the sessions in Kingston.<br /> <br /> Produced by Mario Caldato and Kassin (Orquestra Imperial), the album also features the work of well-known Brazilian musicians João Donato, Wilson das Neves (Os Ipanemas), Don Chacal and up-and-comers such as Pupillo (Nação Zumbi), Fernando Catatau (Cidadão Instigado), Pedro Sá and Davi Moraes.<br /> <br /> Vanessa is currently touring Brazil with a new live show “Jardins e Perfumes de Sim” which incorporates many of the songs of the “Sim” album with her prior hits.<br /> http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/brazilian-superstar-singer-songwriter-vanessa-da-mata-says-yes-to-us-debut 2009-10-13T17:39:40Z The song "Amado" by Vanessa da Mata and Marcelo Jeneci won the "Best Song " at Multishow Awards on August 18th. <br /> http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/amado 2009-8-18T15:21:03Z Vanessa has been rehearsing for the last weeks for her new tour "Perfumes de Sim". The first gig will happen this saturday in Recife with a new band, costume and scenery.<br /> <a href="http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/galeria/ensaio" target=_blank>Here</a> you can see some pictures of her and the band in the studio. http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/rehearsing 2009-8-13T16:28:00Z . http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/paraty 2009-8-11T13:34:17Z In this show, I worked in different areas: I had to come up with a set, so i did. The wardrobe is mostly my creation as well. I bought fabrics everywhere I went – from Paris to Peru – so I could sew clothes that told stories about my life, which I could find nowhere. I thought it only made sense that way. The red dress I wore is from the brand Martu.<br /> <br /> We changed most of the arrangements, as I do every time I put an old song in a new setlist. Every time a song gets a new arrangement, it gives the artist the chance to show new images, tell new stories to the audience. This is especially clear in “Não me deixe só”, “Ainda bem”, and “Viagem”.<br /> <br /> I added three new songs to my everyday setlist. Only ons of those was written by me, “Acode”, which I pulled out of my old collection. It was written over ten years ago, even before I recorded my first CD. It suited my current work perfectly. I didn’t bring any other news songs to the show because it was hard enough to cut out tunes I loved from my previous records. <br /> <br /> I decided to take my chances and sing the version I had worked on for the song “As Rosas Não Falam” (“Roses Can’t Speak”, a classic Brazilian slow samba), which I had made for a TV show, “Som Brasil”, that was a tribute to the 100th birthday of the great Cartola, the song composer, who died in 1980. The drive behind all that courage came from the love I had received from (great Brazilian singer) Alcione, who was also on the show. We were chatting at the end of the shoot, and she complimented me on my version. It was an honor to hear that remark from such a noble singer as her, someone who knows Cartola’s songs very deeply. I couldn’t resist. <br /> “Um Dia, Um Adeus” (“One Day, One Goodbye”), the third “new” song, comes from my memories from when I I was a teenager. Its composer, Guilherme Arantes, is, in my opinion, one of the great hitmakers of our country, he can write beautiful and tricky melodies to straight-forward lyrics, making all his musical complexity into something that seems to be quite simple. <br /> On the other hand, some things could not change. The first one of those is the musical coordination I picked and worked so well in my album “Sim” (“Yes”), a perfect share between Kassin and Mario Caldato. I also could never replace the geniuses Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare on the fice songs we recorded with them in Jamaica. We were fortunate to do it all over again in Brazil, and it sounded even better live. A very special part of the recordings. <br /> Ben Harper came in as a part of the DVD’s extras. We brought in part of our encounters in festivals in Switzerland, Barcelona and Brazil. For reasons I don’t even need to explain, it was utterly important for me and for our song that we had his voice and his guitar in “Boa sorte/ Good luck”. <br /> <br /> Even though a lot was especially made for this new gig, the “Sim” tour worked as a great warm-up and preparation. We played around 180 shows in Brazil and around the world in two years. In that time, Donatinho, Cesinha, Davi Moraes, André Rodrigues, Marco Lobo, Tibless, Play and myself built a musical comraderie as I had had few times in my life. Joana Mazzucchelli, who directed the DVD, came along with us on 20 of the 45 days of the European tour, so she could understand the atmosphere of our daily life. <br /> Just to sum it all up, I’m still the same, I sing with my hair untied and barefoot. I made some sacrifices when I cut songs from my previous records, but that ir the price you have to pay when you wait so long before a first DVD. On the other hand, it was worth it, because I can now say that this garden is me. Now Paraty is my accomplice, my maid of honor, my partner in a record blessed by nature. With flowers, scents, colors and a lot of Brazil. My first DVD is full of a garden with the scents of yes. http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/a-garden-with-the-scents-of-yes-part-2 2009-8-05T19:45:43Z The light rain that came from the skies the exact moment when I was singing “What we need is a rain shower (‘o que a gente precisa é tomar banho de chuva’)” was not part of the show. It actually came, we had no control over it – and we did not wanto to stop it, either. The wind also seemed to be on our side, always going for us, never against us. All the technical details that had been planned before ended up mostly on the hands of Mother Nature, chance, luck, time. And everything came together better than we expected after two nights of recording, four hours each night. My first DVD had to be like this. <br /> <br /> I think that’s why I waited to long to release it. I sewed it slowly, starting on the outside, step by step, until I got to the middle and closed with my details, imprinting them softly, the way my personality is. Just like the words to a song, a perfume made of images, of different flavors, combinations and drawings.<br /> <br /> I chose Paraty as a set because, even though it is a city by the sea, it is small, pretty, important and has all the poetic elements of the small Brazilian towns. Its typical characters, for instance, came down: the vagabond and his dog, the old men and their little carts with cakes and other goodies, the ladies from the church, the priest, the kids, the foreign tourists who dive into what ir happening, no questions asked, a hummingbird who tries to drink water from a fake water fountain. They were all part of the movie. <br /> <br /> <em>to be continued...</em> http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/a-garden-with-the-scents-of-yes-part-1 2009-8-05T19:45:05Z In those videos, Vanessa sings classical songs written by Cartola, a famous "samba" artist in Brasil. http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/vanessa-sings-cartola 2009-8-03T19:30:11Z This is the new video clip for the song "Vermelho".<br /> Directed by Gui Conti, with the Toys Group <br /> "Contadores de Estórias de Paraty".<br /> Pictures taken by Marcelo Naddeo.<br /> http://www.vanessadamata.com.br/post/new-video-clip 2009-7-27T19:35:27Z