The singer from Porto Alegre is making a well-earned impression in Sao Paulo.
Gisele De Santi’s southern charm comes to her naturally: She’s more than proud of her gaucho roots.
One of the truly wonderful things about Brazilian music is how talented newcomers can rise up through the ranks. In fact, that pretty much explains how we discover, consider, and then introduce them to you here.
It kind of goes like this: Musicians submit their music to us. Our programming staff vets each song. The best songs are added to our 12 streaming channels – including New Music: Brazil – and featured on our live streaming station.
What first drew us to Gisele De Santi? Her voice plays lightly with your imagination, silky smooth, delicate. But what you hear is also a bit deceptive, and here’s why.
In a country filled with fresh young voices, Gisele De Santi is both a talented singer and songwriter of remarkable maturity and creative security.
De Santi impressed us right from the start. Her debut single was named Connect Brazil’s ‘Song of the Year’ for 2013.
Back then we wrote, “With her self-titled debut album receiving rave reviews in Brazil and Japan, there is no doubt that her song ‘E Eu’ (What About Me?) is sure to become her calling card to wider popularity here in the US.”
Our streaming debut for Gisele De Santi’s new song
Just released, Gisele De Santi’s latest love song is called ‘Todo Espaço’, a story of waiting and wanting. “Come live in my embrace. It can take up all the space. There’s no love greater than ours,” she sings.
Don’t miss our streaming debut of Gisele De Santi’s ‘Todo Espaço’ this Friday, August 6th!
Listen Live this Friday
Be sure to join me for Brazil Back2Back, when I’ll play a pair of Gisele De Santi’s song songs on our streaming station this Friday (8/6). Top of the hour, at 11 am, 2 pm, and 5 pm CT for two in a row.
Use the Connect Brazil Listening Lounge: Always free, always live.
Early Days In the Port of Happiness
Gisele De Santi started out on the club circuit in her hometown of Porto Alegre, far from Rio’s sun-kissed beaches but the message in her music is the same.
“You wanted a song and I gave you a style,” she sings in ‘E Eu’; a clever turn of phrase which suggests that Brazil’s pop sound is once again in good hands. And her Brazilian fan base agrees – showering this up-and-coming vocalist with the highest praise.
Gisele De Santi’s southern charm impressed the judges at the Açorianos Awards. Time after time.
De Santi won both the Performer and Newcomer categories of the annual contest in 2010 for her self-titled debut album Gisele De Santi. Three years later, she released a follow-up album Vermelhos e Demais Matizes, which won the award for Best MPB Composer. Her third album, titled Casa, won both the Açorianos awards for Best MPB Album and Album of the Year in 2016.
That was before Sao Paulo claimed her as one of its own.
Opportunities and uncertainty
Soon after, Gisele de Santi took time off to begin a family. She retuened to release an EP in 2019 while 2020 saw new singles, plus several live streams on Instagram.
Covid’s lockdown brought uncertainty to us all, including Gisele De Santi. Not too long ago, she took to her Facebook page to share some insight with her fans.
It was a rare and honest comment on the feelings we’ve all experienced, beautifully expressed by the Brazilian’s southern charm:
“What if I fail? But what if I fly?” she wrote, quoting impressionist artist Erin Hanson’s lovely comment.
“I was afraid of opinions, needed external approval, needed to be accepted,” she continued. “
Projects, albums, shows, froze for months and even years. Newly written songs on the paper became a little ball crumpled in the trash. It was never good and my production never sounded genius enough. What if no one likes it?
“In 2015, with the birth of Chico, my eldest son, I felt a giant energy taking me out of this lonely place of self-judgment. I opened up to other musical styles, I composed with all the possible “tribes”.
“I allowed myself to walk the paths that before I thought weren’t mine. And guess what? I found out that everything was mine and that I was from all those corners and sounds!
“And I didn’t have to be genius. I just needed to be me! What freedom! I finally breathed!
“Fear of falling? Still got it! But baaaaby, how good it is to fly!”
Gisele De Santi’s Southern Charm
Stories like ‘Gisele De Santi’s Southern Charm’ are what we do. Why don’t you join us?
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