For 2012's Caravana Sereia Bloom, Céu worked with producer Gui Amabis to radically alter her approach to recording. Her sophomore release, Vagarosa, arrived in early 2009. The set earned a Latin Grammy nomination in 2006 for Best New Artist. Thanks to the buzz surrounding her debut, Céu's debut landed at the top of the World Albums Charts and inside the top half of the Top 200. The album was later licensed by Six Degrees, a stylish label based in San Francisco that is known for its catalog of Brazilian releases, after CéU had already met with success in parts of Europe, including France, and, by association, French-speaking Canada as well. CéU was released in 2005 by Urban Jungle, a label based in São Paulo, in partnership with Ambulante Discos, Villares' label. After moving back to Brazil and fronting a couple groups, Céu recorded her debut album, a self-titled release produced largely by Beto Villares, with the aid of Pinto. While in New York City, she befriended Antonio Pinto, a fellow Brazilian musician best known for composing the award-winning score to the film City of God (2002). There she encountered many new influences, including old-school jazz singers such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as contemporary R&B singers such as Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu. Rather than go to college, she studied music, including theory as well as the violão, a nylon-stringed guitar native to Brazil.Īt 18, Céu relocated to New York City for a time. At an early age she learned to appreciate renowned Brazilian composers such as Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ernesto Nazareth, and Orlando Silva, and as a teenager, she decided to become a singer. (In Portuguese, céu can mean either sky or heaven, depending on the context more specifically, the word comes from the Latin word caelu and refers to the infinite space overhead, including the sky as well as the cosmos.) She grew up in a musical family her father is a composer, arranger, and musicologist. She was born Maria do Céu Whitaker Poças in São Paulo however, she bills herself as simply Céu. She won a Latin Grammy for Best Portuguese Language Contemporary Pop Album and four Prêmio Multisho awards in Brazil, including Album Recording of the Year. 2016's globally celebrated Tropix wed all of the above with electro and jazz, cementing her reputation as an innovator. Beginning with 2012's Caravana Sereia Bloom, electronica was subtly added and took an increasingly dominant role in performances and singles.
Her delivery style weds iconic Brazilian phrasing and nuance with her airy, slightly smoky alto it is married to a highly original mix that seamlessly juxtaposes post-tropicalia samba, valsa, choro, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and jazz. Céu proved to one of the more internationally appealing singers to break out of Brazil around the time of her 2005 debut, ultimately winning both Latin Grammy and Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and garnering interest across Europe, North America, and finally Asia.