Biography
Born in Ceres, Brazil, Mendes earned the nickname ‘the Brazilian Sade’. Student lore from Brazil’s University of Music recounts how she left her native country for the UK specifically to locate producer Robin Millar. After securing the contact details of the occasional Sade and Everything But The Girl associate, she reportedly lured Millar into recording sessions by performing directly onto his answering machine. Lines such as ‘You are the sexiest man I ever saw’ (‘Night Night’) and ‘Freedom is the best gift of life, so take it’ (‘Natural High’) nevertheless render her sensuality somewhat contrived beside that of her idol. Placed within the nu Brazil movement, she fuses longstanding traditions from her homeland with present-day reference points that include Björk. Delicate Brazilian rhythms sit alongside acoustic guitar, synthesizers, and understated programming. On ‘Night Night’ she distills her outlook with the declaration ‘I know what life is for/I want to live life for pleasure’. The album Ive Mendes appeared in 2002 on the Brighton-based Mr Bongo imprint, which arranged sympathetic reworkings of her material by DJ Marky And XRS, Thomas Schumaker and Sao Benitez for inclusion in its Brazilian Beats series. One of her tracks also served as the theme for the major Brazilian soap opera Courpo Dourado.