And after one year, we are on the Road to Womex once again…

Just as it happened in 2021, we have the pleasure to make the introductions and present to you some of the acts who will be enriching the nights of the World Music Expo.

Throughout the upcoming weeks, until the 19th of October when Womex will officially launch its long weekend in Lisbon, we will indeed let you get acquainted with musicians and bands picked by the 7 Samurai for the official showcase programme. 

The first episode of our section is dedicated to an artist of whom to define thought-provoking would be rather reductive.

Bia Ferreira is absorbing, provocative, inspiring and (above all) a striking singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who has quickly become one of the sharpest and most recognised voices of the Brazilian music scene.

She started writing music when she was 12 and since then, she never stopped a moment to put herself on the line standing for anti-racist, anti-homophobic and feminist stances in a country where it’s not always a bed of roses to be vocal regarding those subjects.

So, we couldn’t possibly re-launch our Musical Road to Womex section in a better way than featuring a Q&A and a playlist compiled by Bia Ferreira.

Can you briefly introduce your music to someone who will listen to it for the first time at Womex?

My art is made to emancipate LGBTQIAP+ community in Brazil through the love and information as a tool of survivor technologies. Brazil is the number one killer of the LGBTQIAP+ community in the world.

I sing about it because this is my life: as a black, Brazilian, lesbian and live woman my art is my tool to show society their plan to kill people like me didn’t work!

Who and what are your music influences and where does your sound come from? 

In this new album, I bring a mix of Brazilian black music: R&B, hip hop and samba. I like to explore all rhythms that were created by black people, it means world-music. All the music in the world comes from Africa, and the afro diaspora, so that’s what I do: Black Brazilian art.

As well as a Worldwide Music Expo, Womex is a good and proper global music fun fair. Is there anything you are looking forward to attending/enjoying during those five days?

I hope to meet new people, I hope to take my art to travel around the world, I hope that day by day, more people understand what I’m singing about, that my message finds a home in people’s hearts. I hope to be an instrument of art. I want to know other kinds of music and artists. I want to return to Brazil richer in knowledge and love. That would be enough for me.

This Womex edition will happen in Lisbon. Have you ever been there and is there anything you are looking forward to doing/visiting/eating or drinking in the Portuguese capital?

Since 2018 I have been travelling to Portugal to do concerts. I love Lisboa, and I really love the food from there. Every time I’m in Lisbon I like to find new restaurants or watch some concerts by Portuguese artists. I always come back to Brazil with new friends, good memories and lovely experiences.

Womex is a unique opportunity to share and showcase your music with new people and let them know about your upcoming projects. Can you reveal to us some of your plans for the future?

For the future, I will release a double album, with 21 songs. This project will be called

“Faminta”, which presents two sides of the same coin. Hungry of love, hungry of life, hungry of art and hungry of information.

The first part is about love, about a black woman in love with other black women. It is an open letter of love and appreciation  of black women.

The second part is about explicit information, to explain about the necropolitics project in Brazil. To share how the Amazonia is being burned day by day and unfortunately I’ll share some bad news about the murderer of thousands of indigenous people. But above all, I bring a breath of life. I sing about all the people alive who resist every day and understand this: When you wake up and keep your body alive, a revolution is taking place.

Let’s say that you have to draft an invitation card for our readers to join you at Womex and enjoy your showcase. What would you write in it?

Hey everyone, I’m Bia Ferreira and I’m very happy to be part of Womex/22 in Lisbon. I hope you enjoy the biggest music industry meeting in Europe.

My invitation to you is simple: let art make its home in you. Let us all be instruments of art! Against racism, homophobia, sexism, and the genocide of indigenous and black people in South America and the world. Let’s be the change we want to see!

I want to be part of the realisation of my ancestors’ dream.

- Bia Ferreira will be performing on the Lusófonica Stage on Friday 21st at 11.15PM -

- You can find all the previous episodes of Musical Road to Womex HERE -