In July 2002, the morning after Mariza had performed in Central Park at Summer Stage, Sean Barlow sat down with the emerging Fadista for an extended interview. Mariza has an exuberant personality and she gave a lively interview which not only touched on aspects of her life and career, but also delved in depth into the historical, anthropological and political roots of Fado.

Born in Mozambique and moving to Portugal at the age of three, Mariza displays a wide range of knowledge and interests, which is reflected both when she speaks and when she sings.

SB: So to start, can you tell us some of your memories from Mozambique.

Mariza: I don't have memories from Mozambique, I have funny stories and some roots coming from my grandmother and my mom, but I don't have memories and I don't know nothing about my country, and if we start talking about music, I don't have it too.

In Portugal it is very difficult to arrange music that comes from Mozambique, it is more easy to have music from Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea, Brazil, but from Mozambique I don't know the artists, what kind of music they do, the rhythms they have, so I don't know nothing about what was my country and still is my country because I was born there, but I want one day to make a study about the rhythms they have, what kinds of musics and where they come from, and why they use that kind of instruments because I know they have traditional instruments and traditional rhythms, but at this moment I don't know nothing about Mozambique.

SB: So, what's your musical story of growing up in Portugal, when did you move there, and can you tell us some highlights of how you came into music.

Mariza: I moved to Portugal when I was three years old. I was a very lucky girl because I grew up in a very traditional neighborhood of Lisbon, Moderia. Where musicologists say in the 19th century Fado was born because it was in that neighborhood it was where the bars and clubs, at that time, so the sailors went to Moderia to have fun, and that is how Fado grew out of that traditional neighborhood.

I grew up listening to Fado in every street, in every corner in the neighbor's houses, with friends, it was a kind of living, like breathing like normal. And I started singing Fado at five years old because my parents, they had a little restaurant and at the weekends, they used to have some Fado performers at the Sundays, and I started listening to that kind of music, and I start feeling impassioned you know, the sound of the Portugese Guitar was something very strange, but at the same time, I wanted to understand.

I remember saying to my dad at that time, I want to sing this, and the first thing my father said was, this is adult music, you can't sing this, but I said "No I want to sing this". So my father tried to arrange some Fado's more light you know, not so deeply with poems, you know very deeply. So the first Fado I sang was from a big male singer, Carge du Carmu a Fado singer, and I started to learn the poem because my daddy start to make some cartoons on the papers and I start to learn the poems like that from the cartoons. So I sing Fado until 15 or 16 years old but you know that stupid age when your friends say don't make this, don't make that, and they used to say, what do you do with your free time, and I would say, I sing Fado, Fado, Aye, this is for old people, don't sing that.

So I start to feel interested in other kinds of music like bosa nova, like jazz, like pop, Funky. I used to perform in bars and casinos, I traveled to Brazil to understand why they have bosa nova and all that kind of things, but one day I was singing, because I used to sing for friends Fado, when I feel the ambiance, I used to say, I'm going to sing a Fado for you, because I still love it, but at that time, I don't feel like I can sing this good, I just sing it because I like it, but I never realized I could sing it good and someone would like it. And one day for fun, I sing for friends, and was at a room of a person who had a Fado house.

He asked me if I wanted to perform one day per week in his house, and at first I think oh, he's a crazy guy, why do I want to perform at his house, but then I started thinking about it, and I said, why not, I'm going to try again, and I went to that house, and I start singing, and then I realize, this kind of music is me. I

I could sing all those other kinds of music, jazz, soul bosa nova, but Fado is me, its like breathing, its like open up the heart and say things say the poems say my culture, being Portugese. I can't imagine stop singing this music and saying, okay now I'm going to sing pop music. No, Fado is me, really.

SB: And how old are you now?

Mariza: I'm 28.

SB: So, this is your first record, you started singing once a week and then developing your career…

Mariza: Yeah, I started singing once a week and um the producer of this first record asked me, you don't want to make a record? And I said, yeah, we could make a record, and my father he bought 100, then my mother buy 10 for the friends, yeah for the family, why not. And then I started doing this record and I started feeling impassioned, but you know I never could imagine all of this, you know performing at summer stage, making tours making shows, I never think I could do this or that persons could like my work, you know when you start doing something because you like to do it, you never think you could be making shows, and making tours and giving interviews and reviews in the newspapers and everything.

For me, it's like, Wow, they're talking about me. But most part of the time, I say, is this really true, I'm not dreaming, it's true, I'm happy, but the most part of the time I don't believe it. I'm seeing from the outside.

When they tell me on this tour, you're going to perform on summer stage and your going to perform at Hollywood Ball, I was saying, oh yes, I'm going, but then I start saying, they're lying to me now. But this past week when I performed on summer stage, when it was done I said, wow, I just performed at summer stage. And when the show on the 14th is over at Hollywood Ball with Lauren Hill, I'm going to say, wow, I just did that. But you know, I'm always with my feet in the back, like, this is not possible.

SB: Well, you've got a witness, it is true!! I saw you yesterday. Let's get to some specific songs. Can we look at Lucoura?

Mariza: You know I have this kind of pop look that's not normal for a Fado singer, a Fadista, and that's the meaning of that Fado. You know the first word is "I belong to Fado" and says, you can have doubt, its madness thinking the contrary. It's like, I'm here I belong to Fado, it is a kind of living and I love it. So when I enter to the stage, and say, "Sou de Fado", it's like feeling and making like, don't have a doubt because I belong to this culture, and I'm here to show you. It's a little bit like that.

SB: That's quite a bold statement, that's great. You mean because most Fado singers don't have blond hair?

Mariza: No, normally they use black hair, not short, long with a bun, and they use black clothes, and they don't necklaces like me, um normally they are more soft/conservative, and I'm crazy, I use stripe socks I use necklace, I love colors, I use what makes me feel good, you know. I know that I don't sing with my clothes, I sing with my soul.

SB: Did you write that song?

Mariza: No, it's not my song, it's a poem. From….I can't remember the name. It's a traditional Fado with a traditional poem, I don't write poems yet. Um, I'm going to try to do it, but I think it's too soon. I think I have to learn more, to have more experience in life to do it, I am too young. I do it for myself, I have some poems at home in my books, but it's only for me, I don't want to show yet.

SB: And there was that song that you performed last night, the one about talking to the wine?

Mariza: "Osno va, Osno Vino" It's a song that talks about, when you drink too much wine, what could happen to you, you could have fun, normally you don't walk straight, ah, you feel you want to dance, and its like the wine talking, what he do to you, it's like the wine saying, if you don't have respect for me, it could make you walk, (crooked), yes, uh, I could make you pay, I could make you dance, because the wine could make you all those kinds of things. So its what the wine will do to you if you drink too much.

SB: So its like you're adopting the persona of the wine in the song.

Mariza: Yes, it's like the wine is talking, not a person who drinks.

SB: That's a good excuse, it was the wine talking, not me, I'll have to remember that one, that's a good one….And then there was the "Fado Tango".

Mariza: Fado Tango" is for you, "por ti". This is a traditional Fado, we have about 200 traditional Fados, you sing the same music, but you can change the poem. So when I decided to record this, I said to myself, why not because Fado Tango, you know, meaning other kind of music, not just Fado but Tango, I think Fado and Tango have some feelings belonging to the same music. And um, I was thinking why not have a little bit of Jazz instead of real tango. And we start this with double bass only and voice. And live, I start with Double bass, then portugese guitar and then all of the instruments come together. In Fado, the rhythm is good for dancing, all Fado's could be danced to. It's not normal that people do dance, but I think you could. When I am on stage performing, if the rhythm sounds a kind of way, I love dance and I will dance because I like it and I feel good.

But Fado, normally they don't dance, and they forbid dancing in the 19th century because they said the dance was too sensual. But one day, why not, I want to make a show with the kinds of dance that were danced in the 19th century. I am studying again and I want to understand where Fado comes from because you this, a Fado Tango. I know it has a lot of roots. African roots, Brazilian roots and Asian roots that's why they have that kind of dance like Umbigada, and Samba and Lundu, all of these kinds of dances which come from Africa and Brazil.

And, Fado Tango talks about the poem that says, "I close my eyes and sing, and I think of you, you the audience, you the instruments, you my love, you,… with all my voice I could up and down mountains I could cross rivers, I could go anywhere because I have the street of life in my hand." That's the meaning of the poem.

SB: Talk a little more about that because I was very interested last night when you were making those connections for the audience about how Fado reflects this crossroads of Portugal and Caboerdi and Brazil, what do we know historically about that, and what do you feel artistically that flow into this stream?

Mariza: You know, when I first started studying Fado history, I started singing when I was about 5, and 20 years passed singing this kind of feeling, I say that because I think Fado is more than just music, it is a kind of feeling. And, I could imagine this big history that Fado has. And when this kinds of things start happening to me I say to myself, I need to understand these things which are a part of my culture, I don't want to be a stupid girl only talking about, oh Fado it comes from the soul, Fado is cultural music, yes, but I need to understand more, so I started studying more and I found very interesting things.

And they have to do with me. You know I was born in Africa, and then I grow up in the traditional neighborhood where Fado was born in the 19th century. Fado first started appearing in the 16th century with the discoverers, but it was a kind of Fado, not the "real" one. Because you know it had a lot of influences from Africa, from Brazil, it was a kind of dance like I said to you a few minutes ago, like Umbigad, Lundu. It was not yet Fado, and they used some instruments, and they say when we start learning, they say Fado came from the Black people, from the Slaves, and musicologist have lots of kinds of theories, some musicologists say Fado was born in Africa, others say it came to Portugal from Brazil, because we discovered Brazil, so we brought some people back from there, they brought those kinds of rhythms of music to Portugal. I really don't know because I'm not a musicologist, what I know is that Fado has three roots where the Portugese people were.

It has the rhythm of Africa, it has the Asian, or Arabic themes, because of the Moors who lived in Lisbon, and it had the rhythm of Brazil, probably from the slaves there who actually were from Africa. So everything has a connection. In the 19th century, there started to appear in Lisbon some black sailors, we don't have DVD's or anything, but we have books, with cartoons showing us, black sailors dancing Fado, and playing what they called at the time, the Portugese guitar. And it was not usual to sing, it was more a music they made for dance, and I don't know why they started singing, first men, and women. But they always were singing sitting, never standing.

At the 20th century appeared the first man, Alfred Maisnero, who makes part of the history of Fado, if you want to be a Fado singer, if you want to know about this kind of culture, you must pass through him. He appeared, and he started singing Fado standing up, that's why now all of us will sing Fado standing up. Fado is this, they started singing poems about grief, jealousy lost loves, because the sailors they were usually far from home and they missed their families, the country home, they had "soldat" a Portugese word for missing something. That's why we have this kind of Malenkali and that's why we have this kind of music. But all of this start with the discoveries in the 16th century.

SB: The second to last song that you did last night at summer stage was a poetic interpretation of Amalia Rodriguez song, was that song on your album too.

Mariza: Yes, the last one is "Agentia Mouterra" it means, people of my land, and the poem is an original from Amalia, Amalia never sung it. And I found that poem in a book, and I decided to do a recording. And I asked a composer from Portugal, Diago Shado, (he doesn't understand anything about Fado, he knows about blues and jazz, but if you talk with him, he really doesn't know anything about Fado) And I asked him if he wanted to make a Fado from this poem, and he said, "Okay, I will try" so he tried, and that's the music.

It is a very melancholic song, it talks about sadness, the sadness I have, I bring it because my people give it to me. So when I sing this, it's like crying, sometimes it hurts, I feel very sad, but it's wonderful to sing it.

SB: Tell me a little about the Portugese Guitar.

Mariza: Yes, they say that this instrument comes from the Lute, the English Lute. And with the years, it has suffered through some modernizations. They changed the instruments. I know that we're not the only ones who play this instrument. It has a shape of a little heart, and we have two kinds of Portugese guitar. Normally, they have a shape of a little heart, and they have 12 strings, and the sound is like crying. One type is from Queenbro, and another from Lisboa. The Queenbro has a little tear at the top, at the arm, Lisbon, has a little snail at the top of the arm. And the sound, one has a higher sound, the other has medium and lower sounds. And they have different tuning as well.

SB: In your ensemble and with Fado in general it seems that the Portugese guitar is the lead guitar and the acoustic guitar is the rhythm guitar…

Mariza: Yeah the acoustic guitar gives you the rhythm and the Portugese is like the second voice. And the bass is a compliment to give the music a more rounded feeling and to have a second rhythm. Because the acoustic guitar gives the tempo of the Fado, and I use the double bass, many other singers use the electric bass, but the double bass makes the dancing part, makes the sound more intimate, it makes you feel something in the heart. And then the Portugese guitar comes and it's like a voice. It's me, the singer and the other voice, the portugese guitar is the leader, it is leading everything. Connecting all the music and all the instruments. And you can imagine doing Fado without the Portugese, you could do it with the piano, with the cello, with other acoustic instruments, but the most traditional is using the Portugese guitar.

SB: Most Americans don't really know much about Fado, yet. They may have heard of Amalia Rodriguez, but from the point of view of the Fado loving Portugese audience, what does Amalia Rodriguez mean for your tradition.

Mariza: You know, Amalia makes part of the history of Fado of course. In Flamenco, you have after Cameron, and before Cameron. When you talk about Jazz, you say after Ella Fitzgerald, and before Ella Fitzgerald. When we talk about Fado we have after Amalia and before Amalia. Of course we have women and men who make part of the history. But Amalia is the Diva, she is the big icon of Fado, she had a different way of singing, she had a different way of being on stage, she was wild, not wild in the meaning of crazy, wild in that she was steps in the front. She had the best poets making poems for her, she had the best composers composing for her, she had the best fashion designers working for her. She was a complete Diva, and she had the voice.

You know when we talk about Fado, we're talking about heart, soul, it's very important, but we can't forget, we must have voice. Fado lives with the voice, because sometimes you must make little trills and nuances with your voice, and then you must have voice to show what you are feeling inside, it hurts, I want to show you. It's the meaning of all this. And Amalia had that, Amalia was and I think still is the Diva of Fado. We can't forget her. She's very important for Fado and for Portugese people.

SB: Very nice, and when did she die?

Mar: About three years ago?

SB: So you of course were able to see her?

Mariza: Yeah, you know I started singing Fado about two months before she died, and I used to say to my friends, one day I'm going to her house because I lived near to her, and knock on her door and say, "Hi, my name is Mariza, I love you and I sing Fado." And then two months passed, and I received a call from a friend saying, "I know this is going to be very strange, but Amalia died this morning." And I said, "You are making fun of me." And she said, "No, it's true." And then I put on the television, and I felt like something from my family, like a little part of me disappeared…but I think this was a feeling from all Portugese people.

What was amazing from watching the television was that everyone was crying for her and singing the Fado's she used to sing, and paying homage to her and saying that they were going to miss her for a long, long time. And I felt the same, you know, it was like someone I knew or someone who made part of my house disappeared. You miss her. It's very strange. I think you would probably feel the same with someone like Frank Sinatra, or Ella Fitzgerald,

SB: Or George Harrison, someone more of the generation…

Mariza: Or George Harrision, for him it was a very stupid thing, you know he died and it was very strange.

SB: You mentioned when you were 15 and you were singing Fado and people said "Oh don't sing that, old people listen to that…" Would you say there is some sort of revival of Fado now in Portugal.

Mariza: (pauses) You know, we must talk about political things now… Fado was connected with the old regime, you know. We have an old regime, on 25 April 1975, they broke the old regime, and Fado was connected with that kind of old thing. And in 1975, all political things in Lisbon changed. We have that history of the three F's. Everyone talks about the three F's in Portugal. Fado, one, Fatima, you know the centuary of Fatima, Fatima the saint, the mother of Jesus. Fado, Fatima and Football. So, you know, those were the three F's we had before the old regime fell, and when all of that passed, Fado suffered a little because everyone said 'Oh, Fado is for dead political people, and uh, we don't have anything to do with those things.' It was something of a political thing, you know, 'We don't like it, we don't use it. Yeuk' And they forgot a little bit about this kind of culture.

And now, I'm talking about now, we, the young people, we don't have anything to do with those political things. Actually, we don't know nothing about it, the things we know we read in books and everything. So we started to understand, this makes part of our culture, makes part of us, Portugese people, so we started singing again and we start understanding, we have poets and poems to sing.

This is a music with a lot of history, it makes part of us Portugese people. And the best thing is that we young people are bringing again at the top this kind of music. And when we are talking about international things. It nice because people are now people are paying more attention to other kinds of cultures, they want to understand. If you are Italian, why do you have, um, in Sardina, they have a music like Fado, why do they have that? If you go to Spain, you want to know, why do they have Flamenco. Now we are more interested in knowing about other cultures around the world. We want to know now. We are a little bit tired of pop music and those kinds of things, stress things. We want to be more near, that's why Fado is now in good health both in Portugal and outside of Portugal because the young people are proud to show the culture and show that this is very good, and it has lots of history and lots of big poets and big poems and music's, and you know, outside, I know everyone wants to feel a little bit of this, so Fado is in good health, it is revivaling again.

SB: That's great, in Lisboa, what is the performance context for this music, is it small clubs? Are there big concert halls? How does it take place?

Mariza: You have Piro Alto, it's a part of Lisbon, but Piro Alto is touristic, you can go there and listen to good singers and good music, but it is not the regional one. It's something for tourism. But if you have some friends who know where they could take you, you go to the traditional neighborhoods, and you can find little taverns, very little taverns, and you could find the Fadista's, at the root of the Fadista, in the meaning of the word, really Fadista. Singing in the middle of the tavern, with a red glass of wine in her hand, and a Cheriso on the table, and everybody singing at the same time. You could see that.

Fado normally in Portugal if you go to the traditional neighborhoods you see Fado in the little taverns. When you start to make records and this kind of things showing everybody, start doing theatres, not big theatres, small theaters, because Fado is not for a very big audience, it is intimistic music, so you need to feel the energy everything. So we do theaters, smaller auditoriums, all of those kinds of things.

SB: And is it on the Radio?

Mariza: Yes!! Of course. We have a problem in Portugal, our radio's they pass too much music from outside, pop music, but you have specific stations that play Fado, Portugese music, Roots, World Music. So it's a kind of specific thing. It's a cultural thing, not for, You post the pop music then pass the Fado, no it's not true. It's more cultural, it's a specific type of radio, it's like public radio.

SB: Like public radio, well it's good to know that at least there is some place for it on the radio, who are the young Fadista's who have made records, who are professional, who are leading Fadista's now?

Mariza: We have a lot!!

SB: Any you think are special, that we should know about, for instance?

Mariza: Oh! Let me think, we are talking about international? You know, now at moment, many young people making records. I couldn't say this is good and this is good because I don't want to forget anyone. Everyone appearing at this moment is very good they are making a force to put all of this thing up. So if I say to you this and this and this, I have lots of friends I can't tell you this is good and this is bad, or listen to this or that or that, because I'm not going to be good to everyone I know. It's better if you or the people who are listening to me go to record store and try to see more things about Fado, and try to listen more and try to have more information about this. Because if I start talking about names, perhaps I'm going to forget one of my friends.

In terms of references, Mado's Dioche, it's not Fado Fado, but it's a kind of Fado, we could talk about Carlos Perige, instrumental music, one of the best we had, could talk about Carge Du Carmu, best male singer in Portugal, we could talk about Amalia. Everyone is different, everyone is special, you can find a lot of singers, lot of good instrumentals.

SB: I'm thinking about making a radio program about Fado and Morna…

Oh, Morna, I love Morna.

SB: What do you like about Morna?

Mariza: I like the feeling, I like the poems, I think Morna is like a kind of sister to Fado, I used to sing it with my friends Tito Periz, Titina, my friend in Lisbon who are from Capo Verde, and I started singing Morna when I was 15 or 16 years old. It was the only approach I started having from Africa it was the first one. Singing Morna very natural, I feel very much like Fado, we could sing it, but it's not in Portugese, in Creolo, but it's a Fado.

SB: Sung a Creolo Bebeza song last night…

Mariza: Beleza was one of best poets and composers from Morna,

SB: What amazes me when I go to a Brazilian concert here, or down in Brazil , most people in audience young or old know all the words, which is amazing because here in America we just don't know the words . It's an indicator of importance of lyricist and the words, and how people actually do listen clearly in the Luciphone world, the Portugese speaking world.

Mariza: When we talk about Fado, Brazilian people love Fado, I actually know some Brazilian singers making Fado records now who I think are wonderful and it is nice, because you know we small country, they are paying attention to us. They are looking at us and saying, I would like to sing this. In fact, just last week when I was in Boston at the Scullers Club, a young man approached me to sign my album and sang some Fado for me in a club, and I was thinking he was from Capo Verde, he was black, but no, he told me he was from America. But his roots are from Trinidad, but he was born here. If you like it you can learn the words, even if you don't know what they mean.

A lot of Fadista's have gone to Brazil and made very big shows and made huge successes there. Brazilian people love it, at the route, at the end, we are all the same, that's why we have something to put us together in same tune, inside we have this kind of melancholy, this Portugese feeling.

SB: Who are the Brazilian singers?

Mariza: We could talk about FaFa Dublaine, Kaitono Volozo, Maria Batania, they love Fado, we have that kind of relationship, very tight some time, with the music can make bridges all of across the world, it brings us together. O Shala.

SB: Great, thank you very much