With a voice like silk and a striking look, little about her gets lost in translation. She has a warmness about her that translates well onstage and an uncompromising passion for a performance that's consistently evident. "I want everything to be perfect but there are no perfect concerts. I try to convince the musicians that when you play to an audience, this is the most important moment of your life - the most important thing you'll do."
Her international debut "Fado Em Mim" was released in 2001, followed by "Fado Curvo" (2003) and "Transparente" (2005), which connects her with Brazilian music via producer Jaques Morelenbaum.

She credits intelligent management.
"All fado singers got to France," she says. "(My manager) looked at me and thought, if everyone goes to France, let's go to the U.K. and the U.S. It wasn't my idea or my target.
"when I arrived I started playing really small places (such as L.A.'s Conga Room) but I was having fun. I never thought, and was never preoccupied, with (the fact) they don't speak my language."
Born in Mozambique and raised in Mouraria neighborhood on a Lisbon hillside, Mariza began hearing fado as a child, but did not immediately attempt to sing the music.
"My father showed me lots of male voices, but I'm the only female he'll listen to. My mother was African. She showed me Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra, Hugh Masakela, Miriam Makeba and some Spanish music. She was opening doors in my mind. Unconsciously, (those influences) appear in my singing."
Stylistically, Mariza tried Brazilian popular music, bossa nova, jazz and flamenco. She never found a voice with which she was comfortable and instead turned to the traditional...with a twist.
Those other musical styles fed her a rhythm that did not exist in fado and as she assimilated foreign sounds, there were purists who decried the way she was treating this 100-year-old style.
"The way I sing," she notes, "it's the same passion, the same level of emotion as in the tradition of the last hundred years."

By: Phil Gallo