Luísa Maita

Biography

Maita was born in São Paulo, Brazil on April 27, 1982, into a musical family. Her father, Amado Maita, was a composer and musician and her mother, Myriam Taubkin, is a music producer.

The samba was very present in Luisa's early days because of the experiences with her father in Bexiga, a working-class neighborhood in São Paulo famous for its culture, food and music, and where Vai-Vai, São Paulo's most traditional samba school, is based.

Maita started singing her father's compositions and also classic sambas and bossa nova. Her professional career began at the age of seven, singing in jingles.

Her main influences come from the personality and energy of western black music, notably the samba. The dance, the instruments, the melodies, the drumming, the body language in samba is a huge influence to Luisa's music, as is pop music from Michael Jackson, Prince and Stevie Wonder. Maita also has a passion for bossa nova, that "has a certain silence that I love, sensuality and a certain expression of peace that I find quite clear in my music too".

In 1999, Maita founded her first band, called Urbanda (the group recorded an album in 2003), started to sing with Daniel Taubkin and also as a backing-vocalist for Jair Rodrigues. After that, Maita collaborated with artists from her generation such as Max de Castro, Mariana Aydar, Ricardo Teté and Danilo Moraes and Ricardo Herz.

In 2006 the Brazilian singer Virgínia Rosa recorded two songs by Luisa on her album "Samba a Dois". The songs stand out in the CD and encouraged Maita to compose more. In 2009, Mariana Aydar released her second album with a composition by Maita and Rodrigo Campos, "Beleza", one of the best songs of the year according to Rolling Stone Brazil magazine. Maita also appears in four songs on Rodrigo Campos' debut album "São Materus Não É Um Lugar Assim Tão Longe" and as the singer of the promotional videos for the Rio 2016 Olympic games directed by Fernando Meirelles. Because of these works, Maita had very positive coverage in the Brazilian press without having yet released a solo album.

After the release of Lero-Lero in the US, NPR's All Things Considered said that Maita is "The New Voice of Brazil" and "if Maita keeps making records this good, she could well be on her way to international stardom".

In November 2010, Maita made her first North America tour, receiving positive reviews from The New York Times, The Washington Post and Boston Globe. During the tour, she also appeared on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert and KCWR's Morning Becomes Eclectic show.

In Brazil, the album figured in the list of best albums of 2010 – including the magazines Veja and Rolling Stone Brasil.

In July 2011, Maita received the award for Best New Artist in the twenty-second edition of the renowned Brazilian Music Award and went to her first European tour playing in important festivals like Nuits du Sud in France and Musicas do Mundo in Portugal.

In August 2011, the singer returned to North America, performing 30 shows in 26 cities over 45 days and, once again, sold out festivals and concert halls and received an enthusiastic review from the LA Times.

Discography

Awards

Collaborations