Fifteen years ago, Sell Jorge could never have dreamed his future.

An outcast at 20, addicted and homeless in Rio de Janeiro's vast slums, Jorge had been swept away as the dust of life, barely surviving a day at a time, hunted by the gang that had killed his elder brother, and driven from his scattered family to the fetid corners of the underworld of Brazil's capital.

Hopeless is not quite the word.

"No one could have imagined what has happened to me since then," says the actor and singer over the phone from his agent's office in New York

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City of God, Fernando Mereilles's devastating 2002 chronicle of the brutal life in Rio's slums, and appeared two years later in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou as cross-cultural drifter singing David Bowie songs in Portuguese.

His recently released CD, Cru, has become a huge hit in Europe, aided by a video featuring Life Aquatic stars Bill Murray and Willem Dafoe. The album is a collection of mostly original, ruminative, samba-tinged songs accompanied by little more than his own rhythmic acoustic guitar.

Its success is the reason Jorge is currently in the middle of an international tour that brings him to night to Lulu Lounge to perform the opening concert at Toronto's fourth annual, 10-day, multi-venue Small World world music festival (info at www.smallworldmusic.com).

Speaking through a translator, Jorge says he never lost hope, even though he could never have known that the music he taught himself on a damaged guitar at the gates of poor theatre school where he used to seek refuge every night would eventually bring him international fame.

"I've always believed life offers something good, and that relationships can last a lifetime. 1 never lost my self-esteem."