Biography
Growing up amid a musically rich household in Brazil, singer and composer Tita Lima received early piano instruction from her grandmother before her father—an alumnus of the 1970s Brazilian rock outfit Os Mutantes—taught her the bass. Once she had honed her command of the instrument, she began performing alongside São Paulo–based players and soon contributed vocals and bass lines to projects by Bocato, João Donato, and Luz de Caroline. After moving to Los Angeles, she enrolled at the Musician’s Institute, which opened doors into the city’s expansive network of international musicians.
Intent on assembling a first solo album that would fuse the strengths of her two creative environments, Lima tracked guitars, bass, vocals, and horns back in Brazil while capturing drums and percussion remotely from Los Angeles. The finished work, titled 11:11, met resistance from labels that dismissed its blend of samba, bossa nova, hip-hop, and dub as “too jazzy” and commercially unviable. Undeterred, she elected to promote the record independently.
The track “A Conta do Samba” appeared on the Brownswood Recordings compilation Brownswood Bubblers, alerting European listeners to her distinctive approach. Rising demand for live appearances prompted her to assemble a band of seasoned players drawn from both Los Angeles and Brazil—musicians whose résumés include Celia Cruz, Keb’ Mo’, Airto Moreira, and Sergio Mendes—and to begin performing at festivals across the United States and Europe.
Intent on assembling a first solo album that would fuse the strengths of her two creative environments, Lima tracked guitars, bass, vocals, and horns back in Brazil while capturing drums and percussion remotely from Los Angeles. The finished work, titled 11:11, met resistance from labels that dismissed its blend of samba, bossa nova, hip-hop, and dub as “too jazzy” and commercially unviable. Undeterred, she elected to promote the record independently.
The track “A Conta do Samba” appeared on the Brownswood Recordings compilation Brownswood Bubblers, alerting European listeners to her distinctive approach. Rising demand for live appearances prompted her to assemble a band of seasoned players drawn from both Los Angeles and Brazil—musicians whose résumés include Celia Cruz, Keb’ Mo’, Airto Moreira, and Sergio Mendes—and to begin performing at festivals across the United States and Europe.
Albums
