Badi Assad ← THE MATRIX of FABULOUS DISCOVERIES

Worldlines from Badi Assad: I'LL TAKE YOU THERE! ▶

Worldlines to Badi Assad:

A short series of steps can potentially carry anybody anywhere on the planet between all other artists and Badi Assad, by the same seemingly magical mathematics which dictates that in human society there are between Badi Assad and you 6 or fewer degrees of separation.

WE BUILT THE MATRIX TO MAKE BRAZILIAN MUSICIANS DISCOVERABLE FROM ACROSS THE GLOBE. TO WORK FOR THEM, IT HAS TO WORK FOR EVERYBODY

ma·trix /ˈmātriks/ originally "source", from "mater", Latin for "mother". We're real mothers for ya!

Who's taking you???

Outgoing curation by: The Matrix

Who I Am & Where I Live

Name: Badi Assad
City: New York City
Country: United States

My Life & Work

Bio: Badi Assad was born in the small city of São João da Boa Vista, São Paulo, Brazil. Her early years were spent in Rio de Janeiro, where the family moved to support and develop the budding talent of her brothers, Sérgio and Odair, the famous classical guitarists ‘Duo Assad’.

Watching her brothers’ musical development had its effect, and her introduction to music came at her mother’s urging. “I began to learn piano when I was eight, but all we could afford was a little electronic Yamaha which was made for kids, and I practiced on it until my hands outgrew the keyboards.” Her guitar studies began in earnest at age fourteen, playing with her father, an amateur mandolin player. Within that year, she won her first competition at the “Concurso Jovens Instrumentistas for Young Musicians”, in Rio de Janeiro/1984.

In 1987, at only 17 years old, she was named “Best Brazilian Guitarist of the International Villa Lobos Festival.” A year later, Assad recorded her first solo album, entitled Dança dos Tons which was released only in Brazil. Soon after, Badi was selected out of two hundred women to perform as one of two vocalists in the play Mulheres de Hollanda. The theatrical collage of songs by Brazilian composer Chico Buarque ran five days a week for over a year garnering rave reviews for Badi’s looming star potential in the process.

Badi began to experiment even further with her voice. It is at this point mouth percussion and rhythmic body percussion became part of this exploration. These elements were intuitively combined with her already impressive guitar approach thus creating excitingly fresh sounds that complemented her vision as musician and performer.

Just as Badi’s innovative new direction began to emerge, opportunities began to present themselves; with 1994 came her association with the independent label Chesky Records. Her first album, entitled Solo, introduced Badi as a potent force in the guitar world. Her international stature grew with the release of her second album “Rhythms” in 1995. In fact, Rhythms was lauded as one of the most important guitar recordings of that year. The album won Guitar Player Magazine’s Readers’ Poll for “Best Classical Album of the Year” (The Guitar Player editors jokingly commented: “not a classical album but played on classical guitar…close enough!”). In addition, she was voted “Best Acoustic Fingerstyle Player” by Guitar Player magazine’s editors.

Assad fulfilled her Chesky contract with 1996’s beautiful anthology of Brazilian guitar composers appropriately entitled Echoes of Brazil. Then in 1997, Badi was quickly signed to her first major label contract with PolyGram. The result is the ambitious and critically acclaimed ethno-pop soundscapes of her sophomore album, Chameleon and the WORLD was ready for her.

In 2016 Hatchedreceived acclaimed reviews for incubating a new Brazilophilic way to listen to global hits from modern icon labels including Lorde and Skrillex. In 2018 she released her first book, Around the World in 80 Artists (Pólen Livros). The film, BADIdirected by Edu Felistoque was named Best Film by The FestCine Maracanaú in Fortaleza, Brazil and had its international debut at the 2018 Brasil Summerfest in New York. Recently Stringshot, recorded with the legendary blues slide guitar Roy Rogers and the virtuoso harpist and violinist Carlos Reyes, was released.

Who's taking you???

Who I Am & Where I Live

My Life & Work

My Media

Click to Listen on Spotify

Clips

sparrowroberts@gmail.com for entry code

Member Sign In