Sara Tavares

Sara Tavares (born 1 February 1978 in Lisbon) is a Portuguese singer.

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Sara Tavares was born in Lisbon in 1978 to Cape Verdean parents. Her father moved to the US and her mother also disappeared, which is why Sara grew up with an older Portuguese woman who took care of her upbringing. Tavares' childhood was not only shaped by this person, however, but also by her life on the streets. She spent a lot of time hanging around on the streets, where she really got to know people with all their facets such as contempt and rejection.

At 15, Sara Tavares won the two most important Portuguese music competitions and the national elimination for the Eurovision Song Contest. On April 30, 1994, she represented Portugal at the Dublin Eurovision Song Contest, where she placed eighth with her song Chamar A Música. She then advanced to a national celebrity and recorded her first album Sara Tavares and Shout, which was composed of different styles such as gospel, rnb or funk. Tavares was given the opportunity to perform on various Portuguese television shows and was very successful. She also gave concerts outside Portugal for the first time, for example in her parents' home country.

In 1997, she withdrew from the public eye to devote more time to the music and musicians of West Africa. Two years later, in 1999, her second album Mi ma bô, produced by Lokua Kanza, was released. Tavares wrote and composed most of the tracks herself. The album went gold in Portugal and was also well received internationally.

What is striking about her lyrics is that she uses a mixture of different languages. Thus, Portuguese, a slang from Angola and the Cape Verdean Crioulo flow into her texts. In this way, she refers to the poor class living on the street, to which she also counts herself.

In February 2006, her album Balancê was released, which is similar in style to her second album. In the meantime, Tavares composes and produces independently and also plays most of the instruments herself.

In January and February 2007 she could be seen on German stages. She performed in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Freiburg, Cologne and Karlsruhe. The concert in Cologne was sold out with 400 spectators. Furthermore she is a frequent guest at the Africa Festival in Würzburg.

After a long album break, a new work entitled Fitxadu was only released again in 2017.

Discography

• Chamar a música (1994)
• Sara Tavares and Shout (1996)
• Mi ma bô (1999)
• Balancê (2006)
• Alive! in Lisboa (2008)
• Xinti (2009)
• Fitxadu (2017)