Has it really been ten years already? Has it been ten years since Mariza came, seemingly from nowhere, and changed the way people looked at Fado all over the world?
Her striking looks, no-nonsense attitude, stage savvy and soaring voice brought Fado, Lisbon's melancholy popular song, out of its previous fusty closet. Mariza pushed Fado to a new international stardom. The figures speak for themselves. Four acclaimed studio albums; countless world tours and rapturously received shows, with performances at venues such as New York City's Carnegie Hall, London's Royal Albert Hall, the Sydney Opera House or the Paris Olympia; three BBC Awards for Best European Act, among many others, plus two nominations for the Latin Grammy Awards. After over one million records sold and 32 Platinum awards, Mariza comes full circle.
On her 2001 debut album, "Fado em Mim", she said "Fado is in me". The follow-ups "Fado Curvo" (2003), "Transparente" (2005) and "Terra" (2008) showed her modern and refreshing approach to this centenary song closely identified with the Portuguese capital.
Now, as if to celebrate the tenth anniversary of her journey, Mariza returns to her roots in "Fado Tradicional". On her fifth studio album, she unashamedly embraces the origins of the genre: the time-honoured standard melodies that have been passed on through decades from singer to singer. It is said that no Fado singer can ever be a "true" Fado singer until she or he tackles these classics and makes them unmistakably her/his own. And this is the challenge Mariza faces in "Fado Tradicional" by taking on Fado's classic melodies, already sung by so many of the genre's influential stylists. And Mariza successfully passes the test. As someone who was steeped in Fado since her childhood in the old Lisbon neighborhood of Mouraria, and who carried its emotion inside her ever since.
Mariza may have travelled the world these past ten years but at heart she remains a Lisbon girl – and to hear her singing the classics like she does here is to realise how much she has moved on and grown up without ever losing her unique identity.
Mariza's unique blend of the old and the new, as Fado historian Rui Vieira Nery writes on the album's liner notes, is the best evidence that she may have come full circle, but this is not a step back. Rather, the realisation that you need to know where you come from to understand where you're going to. That is what Mariza does in "Fado Tradicional": she builds something new within the confines of the tradition, proving her mettle of true Fado singer.
Yes, it has been ten years already – and the journey continues.
www.mariza.com
