Flavia Coelho

Flavia
Coelho is a nomad
by nature, a thirst for adventure inherited from her mother,
beautician for the first transvestites in the neighbourhood of São
Gonçalo
in Rio de Janeiro.
Growing up she listened, as loudly as possible, to Diana Ross, Nina
Hagen and the divas of popular Brazilian songs like Gal Costa and
Maria Bethânia, whereas her father collected cassettes of
traditional music of the Nordeste. As a little girl she was full of
the sound of Forro and the Repente music of Brazilian griots.
Flavia
was 8 when her family moved to São
Luis, also known as the
Island of Love, situated between tropical forests, marsh lands and
beaches. At this time she wandered through the house singing with a
bucket on her head. It was with this homemade echo chamber – an
idea of her mother - that she discovered her voice. She was only 14
when she answered an ad to join As
Solteirissimas (The
Bachelors) a group of girls who were looking for a new singer. A
double life began! Secretly she sang in bars working relentlessly on
her voice and rhythms, in styles that ranged from grunge to punk,
rock to jazz, rap to pop.
The
pretty carioca was not fainthearted. Flavia
experienced all sorts of hell: hanging around some of the most
dangerous parts of the town, staying up all night in squats and bus
shelters and crossing the length and breadth of Brazil to be heard.
She left Rio in 2006, the very moment she was making a name for
herself, to start from scratch in Paris, the city of her dreams. It
was the period when she sang in the subway, passed the hat in bars,
did child-minding, cleaning jobs and even walked dogs.
In
2013, the restless Brazilian brought out the ultra upbeat EP Bossa
Muffin, Remixes and Inéditos,
contributed to the official theme song for Marseille-Provence
European Capital of Culture, received the Golden Women Music
Breakthrough prize and got dancing around the happy crowd, the
well-known Ultra Bal.
Since
living in Paris, Flavia finds that “everything
sounds Brazilian”.
That’s exactly what you feel when listening to Mundo
Meu, produced
by the same producer as her first album, Victor-attila Vagh and mixed
by Tom Fire. She unfolds her inner world like an immense,
multicoloured urban map. Her flow resonates to an urban Baile Funk,
the Repente of her father becomes Afrobeat, the Forró
and Samba find a new
life fuelled with Hip-Hop, African roots join Kanak chants, Bolero
joins Raga while East
European music becomes tropical via Jamaica.