Paulo Braganca

Biography

The melancholy tones of Portugal’s blues-like music, fado, continues to be raised to contemporary standards by vocalist Paulo Braganca. While fado continues to be the building blocks of his music, Braganca provides forsaken the original sounds and only flamenco rhythms, hiphop backbeats and components of Brazilian pop music. As he described throughout a 1996 interview, “when stuff aren’t happy, we must like our sadness — that’s what fado would be to me”. Blessed to Portuguese parents in colonial Angola, Braganca was subjected to fado from an early on age. His dad was an beginner singer and paid attention to previous fado records. Immediately after returning along with his parents to Portugal, at age nine, Braganca started singing within the roads and fado pubs of Lisbon’s Bairro Alto section. In 1988, Braganca performed in a fado evening sponsored with the Lisbon Academics Association. The knowledge motivated him to go after music being a profession. Documenting his debut one in 1991, Braganca was overheard by David Byrne who agreed upon him to his Luaka Bop label. Braganca’s debut record, “Amai”, released in 1996, included traditional and primary fado tracks, sung in Portuguese, along with a cover of Nick Cave’s tune, “Sorrow’s Kid”, sung in British.

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