Theme “Rapariga” features the participation of what is considered the greatest figure in Fado and guitarist Carlos Gonçalves. It was recorded in 1989 but never released before.
The singer Barbara Bandeira edit this friday “Lusa: act II”the second part of a project “to celebrate the Portuguese language”, which is dedicated to “portugality” and includes a duet with Amália Rodriguesin a fado song never before published.
In the new album, Bárbara Bandeira continues the project started in March 2025 with “Lusa: ato I”, which served as an introduction, “to explain what was to come”.
“To explain that this will be a fusion between Portuguese roots and Brazilian roots, and I have a little bit of both worlds inside me [a mãe é brasileira e o pai português]and will go through the entire Lusophony. It’s basically a celebration of the Portuguese language and music made in Portuguese”, he said, in an interview with the Lusa agency.
The project will have four acts, each with “a completely different aesthetic, a completely different concept and a different sound too”. Act II is “Portugality”, the act in which Bárbara Bandeira set out to learn more about herself and Portuguese culture.
“I think it’s increasingly important, especially for my generation, to question ourselves and want to know what it means to be Brazilian, what makes us culturally as rich as we are. It’s a question that I ended up asking myself during this process and this project, and that has enriched me a lot culturally”, he said.
Bárbara Bandeira, 24 years old, daughter of a Brazilian woman, from Fortaleza, and a Portuguese man, singer Rui Bandeira, speaks of the “Lusa” project as “a personal discovery too, not just an artistic one”.
“I feel like I have learned a lot about myself and about us, Portuguese people as a whole, as I go through this process”, he shared.
To help her, she counted on singers Carolina Deslandes and Ella Nor, on the lyrics, and producers Migz and Ariel, “who are a constant throughout this project”.
“They are [Migz e Ariel] who ended up developing each act with me and also sought out some traditional Portuguese elements”, he said.
Unreleased theme with Amália Rodrigues: “we feel like she’s really here”
In an album dedicated to Portugal, Fado could not be missing, in this case a duet, in “Girl”with what is considered the greatest figure of that musical genre: Amália Rodrigues.
“This is a song that will be given to the public for the first time in Amália’s voice. It is the first time that the public will hear it, and that is why, for me, it is so special. I didn’t want to get a song that people already knew or that Amália had already released”, he said.
The theme by Amália, by fado singer and guitarist Carlos Gonçalves, was recorded in 1989, but never released beforeand Bárbara Bandeira remembered trying to get to it after having heard that they existed.
“When I went to talk to Francisco Vasconcelos [diretor-geral da Valentim de Carvalho, editora de Amália]he confirmed to me that yes, these recordings existed. Some of them were launched over the last few years, others may be launched in the future, I believe”, he recalled.
Before giving authorization for Bárbara Bandeira to access the recordings, the general director of Valentim de Carvalho wanted to listen to the album.
“And after listening and authorizing, I accessed some of the recordings that Amália had, and this was the song that made the most sense to me. It’s a song that made as much sense when it was recorded as it does now. I totally fell in love with the song, and I think that when people hear it they will like it a lot too,” she said.
Bárbara Bandeira feels “extremely honored” by the trust placed in her, when they allowed her to record a duet with Amália, of an unreleased song by the fado singer.
“I’m very happy. It’s a personal thing, it’s a personal achievement for me. I think it’s one of those things that if you told me a few years ago would happen, I wouldn’t have believed it. And it’s really beautiful, because when we hear the song we feel like it’s really here.” [Amália Rodrigues morreu em 1999, dois anos antes de Bárbara Bandeira nascer]. And that’s what makes me most emotional when I hear the song”, he shared.
