You might not understand the words unless you speak Portuguese, but you will embrace the music; whether it features acute rat-a-tat rap, or channels an underground lounge where luscious ballads caress folks pondering love and politics, Bia Ferreira’s music jolts and delights.

The songs highlight Ferreira’s profound musical knowledge earned in piano lessons at age 3, singing in the choir at her parents’ missionary church, and studying at the Brazilian Music Conservatory where she learned dozens of instruments. They are equally informed by the songwriter’s life journey as a Black woman whose first song (written when she was 12) asked God to not make her a lesbian, and who hitchhiked as a young adult, busking and learning to play guitar one-handed to attract more onlookers.

As a teenager in 2011, she composed future hit “Cota Não É Esmola” (quotas are not alms) regarding racial allotments in university entrance exams; the song later became mandatory study material for some university entrance exams. Her first release was a 2018 live album; 2019’s Igreja Lesbiteriana, Um Chamado, celebrated the “Lesbyterian Church,” a place where rainbow citizens are embraced.

While she claims her music is made to create discomfort with the status quo, recent songs highlight tenderness as a revolutionary tool. Beware, for these clandestine melodies wrapped around not so secretive messages have also been known to create euphoria.

Mary-Lynn Wardle