CéU [Digipak] (CD - 2005)

The concepts of musical multiculturalism and postmodern synthesis were paid a lot of lip service in the early 21st century, but it took an album like CeU's self-titled debut to give the terms true meaning. Finding itself at the intersection of traditional Brazilian forms and urban contemporary attitude, CeU's music is a seductive aural melting pot that plays like the soundtrack to the new global village. CEU mixes bossa nova, samba, and Latin jazz with trip-hop, dance pop, Afropop, and reggae (her cover of Bob Marley's "Concrete Jungle" is one of the album's many highlights). It also blends singer-songwriter intimacy with heady, top-tier production, gorgeous melodies with street-wise grooves, and Spanish-language lyrics with a musical vocabulary as wide as the world. minimize