Paula Toller

Brazilian singer-songwriter Paula Toller (August 23, 1962) rose to fame in the early 1980s as the lead vocalist for the new wave band Kid Abelha. Born in the Rio de Janeiro neighborhood of Copacabana, her musical education consisted of classical music composers such as Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, and contemporary artists like Carmen Miranda, Elis Regina, and The Beatles. She studied industrial design and visual communication at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica of Rio de Janeiro but dropped out of school shortly after to become the singer of rock group Kid Abelha, with whom she recorded a total of seven critically acclaimed albums between 1984 and 2005. Released in 1998, her eponymous solo debut contained a cover of Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” that reached Number 44 on the Brazilian charts. Her second album, SóNós, appeared almost a decade later and featured covers of songs by Erasmo Carlos (“? (O Q É Q Eu Sou)”), Rufus Wainwright (“Tudo Se Perdeu”), and Jesse Harris (“If You Won’t"). In 2009, she scored one of the biggest hits of her career with the chart-topping single “Nada Por Mim,” included in her third LP, Nosso. A fourth album titled Transbordada hit the shelves in 2014.