America, are you ready for Brazilian singer who does classic Elvis? Ready or not. Seu Jorge will give you the King's "Don't Be Cruel" tomorrow at the Bowery Ballroom in New York.

"I'm drawing from a lot of influences and trying to make music that's not heard in Brazil." Jorge, 35, says. "Elvis was a great promoter of black music, and even transmitted a vocal style, and thought it would be a great thing to switch it and promote (Brazilian) music."

Fans of the 2004 movie "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" heard Jorge sing covers of David Bowie songs in Portuguese. (At the Bowery Ballroom, he will sing "Don't Be Cruel" in English.) Art house habitues have also seen Jorge as Knockout Ned in "City of God," the Academy Award-nominated 2002 film about slum life in notorious hilltop Rio de Janeiro favela.

"The film is set in the '60s, and in 2005 it's much, much worse," Jorge says of the Rio favela. "The people on the hill are always facing the city, but no one in the city takes note of them. They're really organized for a war: guns, drugs and money. Ninety percent of the people who live there are hard working people not involved in this, but the other 10 percent manipulate the perception of every one else."

Jorge, who himself grew up in slum conditions, says he is his "own social work project." He began working in theater and film

15 years ago, He is in New York in connection with the release of his album "Cru" (World Village), collection informed by samba and American rock. His overall influences, he says, are carnival rhythms, Tropicalia music founders Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, and American R & B artists like Al Green and the Jackson Five.

The sound of "Cru" (Raw) is led by the high-pitched, four string Portuguese cavaquinho and Jorge's penetrating voice. The record is filled with saudade - that indescribable longing that informs so much Portuguese art, Jorge's music is both searching and somehow comforting.

Jorge wants to lead his impoverished countrymen by example, he says through a translator.

"I don't want to be an idol to people left behind in the favela. I want to give people an opportunity. People in Brazil are not pre pared for success. My role and work is to be that person who got out and did it. But I had to be my own project to get myself out in the first place."