User:Jprsousapt/Fábia Maia

Fábia Maia (born 25 April 1993) is a Portuguese singer-songwriter. Starting by performing hip hop covers for her YouTube channel, she started her record work in 2017 with Melodia-me [Melody Me], followed by a second EP in 2020, Santiago. She participated in RTP's Festival da Canção 2021 with "Dia Lindo" [Beautiful Day], penned by her, reaching 10th place in the final gala. She was part of EQUAL Portugal playlist on Spotify in August 2021.

Early life and career beginnings
Fábia Loureiro Lopes Maia was born on 25 April 1993 in Barcelos, in the North Region of Portugal, to a Portuguese mother and accountant, Sílvia Lopes, and a Brazilian father and football coach, Ernilson Maia. Her grandmother Dilória was responsible for Fábia's first steps in music, giving her the first guitar and music lessons. As a teenager, she discovered some of her still today musical idols (Avril Lavigne, Lauryn Hill, Damien Rice) that made her less worried about her image and freer to express herself. As a result of a heartbreak, she starts posting hip hop covers on YouTube to try to win back her old flame, who was keen on this musical style.

As a result of the visibility that the online platform brought her, she was invited in 2015 to participate in Rimas e Batidas Festival, where she got more seriously into music. Her first EP, Melodia-me, came out in 2017, with appearances by Slow J (on the album's theme with the same title) and Jimmy P (on "Má Vida"). After that, she released some singles such as "BarcelonaParis", "A Vibe Certa" and "#nemsei", which gave her a place in the national music scene.

In 2020, after a time of refuge and reflection due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she decided to say "goodbye" to hip hop and released a more introspective work, Santiago, where she "spoke" to her unborn brother (due to her mother's miscarriage). With this second EP, she returns to her musical origins (which combine rap, pop, jazz and soul) and to her teenage idols to "rebuild" herself.

Still in 2020, she received an invitation to the following year's RTP Festival da Canção. She eventually confessed that this was the "best year" of her life and that her "intuitive heart" told her she would be called for the contest. "Two years before I had told my friends, ´I'm going to be called for Festival da Canção´. Everyone laughed, but the truth is that in 2020 I was a regional juror for the Festival. Later in November [2020] I told my friends again that I was really going to the Festival and they couldn't believe it."

2021: Festival da Canção, national recognition and showcases
On 20 January 2021, the Portuguese national broadcasting company responsible for the Festival da Canção, RTP, releases the songs of the selected composers, including "Dia Lindo", penned and sang by Fábia Maia. The song attracts mixed reviews, but, between compliments and disapprovals, it ends up conquering the Portuguese public and the jury of the contest (Marta Carvalho, NBC, Paulo de Carvalho, Rita Carmo, Rita Guerra and Vanessa Augusto) in the first semi-final, moving on to the final. In this gala, held in the RTP's studios on 6 March 2021, the song ended up in 10th place, collecting 3 points (2 from the jury and 1 from the public).

In September 2021, Fábia announced a crowdfunding request on GoFundMe to record her first independent full-length album, to be entitled Avariações. With this petition, she explains her journey through music and her motivation to continue. "Today, in a way of sharing, I realised that all the no's I have received from managers, majors and other music associates are a compliment," she says, commenting that the record title symbolises the way she feels herself, a "disruptive" person, "as if I was a foreigner within my own country". As she also admits, this title is the result of the combination of the words "avaria" (due to her disruptive position in relation to the music made in Portugal) and "variações" (simultaneously representing the difference through freedom and a tribute to António Variações, who was also distinct from the others of his time).

Still in 2021 she is invited to make showcase videos for two international platforms: Femnøise and Sofar Sounds. The first is a Spanish non-profit organization that invited Fábia for the first edition of Femnoise Fest, a gamified festival aimed at highlighting the emerging talent of dissident women in music. The second is a live music community known for its "private and intimate" shows with streaming platforms, which introduced the world to Maia's sound in a familiar environment.

Social work
As Fábia Maia repeatedly states, music has always been more than a source of income or fame for her. She uses her voice as a means of activism for social causes, focusing especially LGBT and children's rights. In June 2021 she reveals that she fulfilled an "old wish" by donating one violin to an institutionalised child in Braga. "I wanted to do this to create a connection between me and a child, who I would like to follow in the near future and eventually invite to musical moments of mine," she confesses, stating that "if we can give [an instrument] to a child, we can save them through music and show that someone cares about them."

Personal life
Fábia Maia is openly bisexual, as she has admitted implicitly or explicitly on several occasions. Besides, she is assumed to be "spiritual", but not religious, admitting that her spirituality is expressed by channelling the messages of her songs.