
With the melting pot that is San Diego, it’s only natural that “world” music has such a strong hold here. Aficionados of Brazil’s samba-inspired music can catch a full concert production from one of the country’s biggest stars, Daniela Mercury on Oct. 15 at 4th & B. Mercury has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide since her 1991 solo debut, with 14 No.1 hits at home. She is currently touring behind the album, “Canibalia.” Originally released in 2009, Mercury notes the delay in getting the music to U.S. fans was down timing, explaining the album comes out at different times in different parts of the world and that she prefers to take the staggered release approach so she can devote proper time to promotion and touring. “The distances are completely huge and I have to concentrate my energy in each place,” she said. “I’m a little girl and the world is so big.” The album is primarily sung in Portuguese, mixing in touches of R&B, hip-hop, indigenous sounds, electronica and more, but there is samba at its core. One of its key tracks is a duet, “O Que É Que A Bahiana Tem?” with the late film legend Carmen Miranda, using a 1939 recording. “She’s my inspiration,” Mercury said. She notes that she and Miranda are both from the Brazilian state of Bahia. “She recorded sambas than anything and that’s the base of my work. But also, she’s a Bahiana like me and she recorded very important composers from my city.” Concertgoers will see Mercury interact with Miranda via video screens, backed by her 10-piece band and four dancers. Although she does have a few English-sung tunes in her repertoire, she acknowledges that foreign language recordings face an uphill battle in the U.S. “We have media that creates a market that is sometimes hard to penetrate,” she said. “But it’s not the people. When they hear good music, when they hear my music, they understand, they enjoy the samba rhythms, even though I don’t sing very much in English or Spanish.” She considers the language barrier easy enough to get around through performance. “I play all over the world — Turkey, Europe, different parts of Latin America,” she said. “They don’t always know exactly what I’m talking about, but they understand the feeling of my art. I also dance so this communication comes through my form of expression, music and choreography.” She notes that when playing cultural events, sometimes audience members hadn’t previously heard her music. “We are strangers at the time but when you see a few songs, I’m not, or my music is not so strange as they thought,” she laughed. Perennially on the road for the last 25 years, Mercury is still thrilled to have a life in music. She sees it as a platform to entertain as well as educate and inform. “[One of] my motivations is to make my country stronger and confirm that we have important culture. We all have different things to give to the world,” Mercury said. “We have to believe in our culture. I’m talking about Brazil in all our albums because we need to understand who we are. I use it to bring self esteem to our people, because we need it to get more opportunities as a people.” As for making the music itself, Mercury considers that to be the reward for hard work. “To be in the studio is to be on vacation. I’m always so excited to create, to use my intuition, to write about new subjects,” she said. “I have a lot of things to tell to the world.”. Daniela Mercury: Saturday, Oct. 15 at 4th & B, 345 B St. 8 p.m. 21 and up. $25-$35. www.4thandbevents.com