After a brief hiatus, FIAMA is back with a new single “Oowaa”, that finds her rediscovering her Brazilian roots. Once again singing in Portuguese, she effortlessly blends the indie-pop sounds she embraced on her sophomore album Way Too Happiness with the Brazilian tones from her debut They Say Fala.
“Oowaa’ is part of a full circle journey that I’ve taken musically and spiritually,” Fiama says of her new single. “I’m proud to be part Brazilian, or as we’d say ‘tenho orgulho de ser brasileiro.’ ‘Oowaa’ is an expression of that ‘orgulho’ (pride), linguistically and emotionally.”
FIAMA was raised in the suburbs of Chicago by her Brazilian mother, but when she was fifteen, they left the midwest to move to her mother’s birthplace of Fortaleza, Brazil. It was there that FIAMA discovered the culture and sounds that would influence and inform her own music. With artists like Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento, Gal Costa, and Maria Bethânia in her ears, she was inspired to start writing songs of her own.
Even without any formal musical training, FIAMA has always felt music unfolding within her. She hears melodies and lyrics in her head as naturally as an internal conversation with herself. She translates that musical conversation into song through her “human trumpet noise” — singing melodies and beat-boxing rhythms for instruments and grooves into her iPhone.
With this single we get to experience the actualization of her creative spark. FIAMA’s mission has always been to give her audience nothing but her authentic self, and with ‘Oowaa’ it’s happening.
