Céu, whose full name is Maria do Céu Whitaker Poças, is a Brazilian singer-songwriter whose first American album was released on the Six Degrees Records label in April 2007. She was born in São Paulo, Brazil on April 17, 1980, into a musical family, her father being a composer, arranger and musicologist. It was from her father that she learned to appreciate Brazil's classical music composers, particularly Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ernesto Nazaré and Orlando Silva.
By age fifteen she had decided to become a musician and by her late teens she had studied music theory, as well as the violão (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 Céu 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."
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