Daniela Mercuri de Almeida was born in Salvador, in the state of Bahia, on July 28, 1965. From the age of eight she began developing a bond with the arts, initially through dance while attending the Ana Nery School.
Mercury’s life was always influenced by the city’s culture. At the age of sixteen she embarked on a singing career. Two years later she began studying dance professionally at the Federal University of Bahia’s School of Dance.
The daughter of Liliana Mercuri, a social assistant of Italian ancestry and Antonio Fernando de Abreu Ferreira de Almeida, a Portuguese industrial mechanic who’d transplanted to Brazil as a boy, Mercury spent her childhood in a house with a garden on a tranquil street in the Brotas neighborhood with her four brothers and sisters: Tom, Cristiana, Vania and Marcos. She had a typical middle class upbringing balanced by playtime, cultivating the arts, and schoolwork.
Artist, citizen, and mother of Gabriel and Giovanna, Mercury’s restlessness has influenced all of her endeavors, notorious for their element of anthropophagy – a cannibalistic approach to art started by Brazilian modernists during the height of the European literary avant guard movement in the 1920s. In Brazil, artistic anthropophagy embraces difference and outside influences that are worthy of being assimilated in the construction of authentic cultural manifestations.
Mercury is a well-rounded musician whose artistry is not limited to her vocal prowess. She values and is involved in each step of the creative process. Samba-reggae was her school and it reflects the impact Salvador and its culture has on her life and career. However her fusions of samba-reggae with electronic music demonstrate that Mercury resists being pigeonholed into any one genre.
As a post-modern citizen of the world, Mercury is committed to the social role she plays in the global community. She is an ambassador for UNICEF’s and Ayrton Senna Foundation. Additionally she represents various non-profit social organizations.
With twelve CDs under her belt, four DVDs of live performances, and eleven international tours during a twenty-year musical trajectory, Mercury has become the most internationally recognized Brazilian artist today.
Mercury’s artistic expressions are multifaceted. Song, dance, social involvement, coupled with the incomparable energy that fuels her seven-hour long performances atop a trio eletrico during the four days of Carnaval, are ways in which she continues push for her dream of seeing the entire world samba.
Today Daniela Mercury has sold more than ten million albums around the globe. She was the only Brazilian artist invited to participate in the recording of a DVD celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Cirque de Soleil. In 2004 she was invited to commemorate the Montreal International Jazz Fesitval’s 25th anniversary and was a special guest on Alejandro Sanz’s latest DVD, with whom she sang a duet in a bullfighting ring in Madrid. Mercury has sung with the greatest names in Brazilian music and in popular music abroad. Legends such as Tom Jobim, Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Paul McCartney and Ray Charles stand out. The artistic vitality of Daniela Mercury’s musical trajectory is reflected in the fact that all of her albums have produced national hits and many of her songs have been included in soap opera soundtracks.
