By age fifteen she had decided to become a musician and by her late teens she had studied music theory, as well as the [http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viol%C3%A3o#Viol.C3.A3o_popular violao] (nylon-stringed Brazilian guitar). Her songs reveal her many influences, which include samba, valsa, choro, soul, rhythm and blues, hip hop, afrobeat and electrojazz music.
As CeU herself explained, "I have a passion for Black culture, from Jazz divas to Afro beat. Everything comes from Africa. With Samba, I have a very strong connection to the old school that we call 'Samba de raiz' (Root Samba). I am a vinyl listener, so I tried to bring some of that to the CD, mixing it with modern things like rap or even 'Brega', which is the newest thing in Brazil."
In particular, she cites as influences the music of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Lauryn Hill, and Erykah Badu.
CeU was performing onstage with major artists and exploring the repertoire of the marchinhas (turn-of-the-century carnival music) by her late teens. Soon after that she relocated temporarily to New York City, where she had a chance meeting with fellow Brazilian musician Antonio Pinto, who became her flat mate while he was going through some financial difficulties. She later learned that he was actually a distant cousin, and their relationship was renewed when he teamed up with lead producer Beto Villares, composer of the musical score for the movie O Ano em que Meus Pais Sairam de Ferias (2007) to help her record her album. Pinto, who produced CeU's song "Ave Cruz" is the composer of the musical score for two Oscar Nominated films, Central Station (film) (1999) and City of God (film) (2003.)
Originally issued in 2005 on the Sao Paulo-based Urban Jungle and Beto Villares' Ambulante Discos, CeU was picked up by Six Degrees/Starbucks/Hear Music in the US and UK (in partenrship with WhatMusic), by LCL in Canada, JVC in Japan and Oplus in France and in the Netherlands. CeU has a Latin Grammy nomination for "best new artist" of 2006 and just received a Grammy nomination for "Best Contemporary World Music Album." of 2007. She is also riding high on a wave of international success in France, where the influential Les Inrockuptibles recognized her as one of the top 5 musical revelations of 2005, Holland, and Italy, as well as in Canada, where she was recently the fourth highest-selling artist for the Archambault chain of music shops while simultaneously holding the number 32 slot on the pop charts. Debut album in the U.S. with Six Degrees Records as the first international artist on Starbucks' Hear Music Debut Series. Her album was received with critical praise from NPR's Morning Edition, The Associated Press, Reuters, and many more, hailing her as "...a fresh new face in the Brazilian music scene." Her album has sound scanned over 90,000 copies to date, making her the biggest selling Brazilian artist of 2007. CeU reached unprecedented chart numbers for a Brazilian female artist--1 on Billboard's Heatseekers (New Artist) Chart, 57 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 1 on Billboard's World Music charts. In 2008, CeU received a Grammy nomination for "Best Contemporary World Music Album" of 2007 for her debut album CeU.
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