Artists
Paula Lima
Bio
São Paulo-born singer and composer Paula Lima is considered one of the greatest interpreters of contemporary Brazilian funk, soul and R&B music scenery. Hailed as Queen of Soul and Queen of Brazilian Black Music, Brazil's first R&B Diva as well as Diva Paulista, her greatest musical influences are Quincy Jones, Ella Fitzgerald, Elza Soares, Ed Motta, Gilberto Gil, Jorge Ben Jor, among others.
Graduated from classic piano and Law University, but her musical career started with the band "Unidade Móvel" (later "Unidade Bop"), having recorded the album Quebrando o Gelo do Clube in 1994. She became known by re-recording Jorge Ben Jor's old hit Meu Guarda-Chuva, a "lucky" song that has accompanied her career from the very beginning up to today.
Later she participated in the recordings of other two songs for Jorge Ben Jor's album entitled 23.
From 1998 to 2000, she joined the funk big band Funk Como Le Gusta, recording the album Roda de Funk in 1999.
In 2000, she started to work on her first solo album entitled É Isso Aí released in 2001. The work is a fusion of samba, R&B, funk, soul and jazz, and represents a new movement of Brazilian popular music.
Paula Lima became known to Japanese audience after having recording the song Life in Portuguese version for the album of the Japanese band "Mondo Grosso" released in 2000 and produced by Shinichi Osawa.
In 2002, she signed to Universal Music and, in the same year, her debut album was acclaimed by critics and public alike, and nominated for Brazilian Multishow Music Award in the revelation category. So many invitations poured in for her to perform a domestic tour in support of her first solo album É Isso Aí, also commercialized in Europe, Japan and United States.
Diva Paulista is an international re-release of Lima's domestic debut solo album É Isso Aí, containing 9 of the 13 tracks from the original album. This international debut album is an blend of samba, funk, soul, jazz and rocks from start to finish.
Her second album self-titled Paula Lima released in 2003 -- which includes the hit Gafieira S/A -- was also commercialized in Europe and Japan and most of the songs of the first two albums were composed by Paula Lima, Seu Jorge and Ed Motta.
The third album of her career - Sinceramente - signed to Indie Records and released in 2006, had its first edition sold out in less than a month. The album repertory includes unpublished works of Seu Jorge, Ana Carolina, Zélia Duncan, Mart’nália, Arlindo Cruz, Leci Brandão among other renowned MPB and samba musicians. Also released in Japan, the success of Sinceramente was covered by the Japanese magazine“Latina”, which featured 5-pages special interview with the artist, who also appeared on the magazine’s cover.
Sinceramente album gave to Paula in her home country, two “Premio Tim”Musical Award Nominations for 2007 besides the “Premio Toddy” Musical Award nomination for Best MPB album. In the same year, she won the prestigious “Raça Negra” trophy in the category of Best Singer.
In 2008, she was invited to become a judge for the Brazilian TV Channel Record, “Idolos” reality show. Following the successful result of the domestic tour in support of Sinceramente album, where she had performed more than 120 stage tours throughout Brazil between 2006 and 2007, Paula decided that it was time to start working on her first DVD.
The long awaited CD/DVD SambaChic was live recorded in São Paulo on August 28, 2008 and released on January 24, 2009. This work covers her career since the beginning until now, showing her musical influences from soul, funk, hip hop, jazz, bossa and neo-bossa genders; through ballads, funk accents, charm, swing and samba rhythms. Here, she shared the stage with several Brazilian greatest names in samba and MPB with talent, versatility and stunning artistic performance in a unique and original way. SambaChic, which already received high praise from critics and audience in Brazil, was produced by the artist herself, Walmir Borges with the collaboration of Antonio Pitanga.