Mísia (born Susana Maria Alfonso de Aguiar, in 1955 in Porto, Portugal) is a Portuguese fado singer. Mísia is a polyglot. Despite singing mostly fado, she has sung some of her songs in Spanish, French, Catalan, English, and even Japanese. Parentage Mísia's mother was Catalan and used to be a cabaret dancer, which accounts for many of the influences that shaped her music: tango, bolero, the use of Portuguese guitar with accordion, violin and the piano. Style Throughout her career, Mísia developed a new style: she modernized Amália Rodrigues's fado, shocking orthodox audiences by adding to the traditional instruments (bass guitar, classical guitar and Portuguese guitar) the sensuality of the accordion and the violin, and borrowing their finest verses from the greatest Portuguese poets. Recordings She recorded a little-known record in Catalan. Her first solo album was released in 1990, at a time when fado was a poor career choice for a portuguese singer. With the exception of Amália Rodrigues and Carlos do Carmo, there was no audience for "fadistas". Nevertheless, Mísia went on to record an album respecting all the traditional features of the genre, including poems from popular fado songwriters, such as Joaquim Frederico de Brito or José Niza, alongside poems by famous Portuguese poets, such as José Carlos Ary dos Santos, and even a piece from Vinicius de Moraes's song, "Samba em Prelúdio". The album bore her name, "Mísia", and was very well received by both audience and critics outside Portugal, mainly in France. The album was followed by "Fado" in 1993, in which she maintained her decision to use lyrics by popular writers and poets. This time she sang songs by Sérgio Godinho ("Liberdades Poeticas"), Amália Rodrigues ("Lágrima"), along with poems from António Lobo Antunes ("Nasci Para Morrer Contigo"), Rosa Lobato de Faria ("Fado Quimera" and "Velhos Amantes" based on a song by Jacques Brel) and even a text by future Nobel prize winner José Saramago ("Fado Adivinha"). In 1995, she recorded "Tanto Menos Tanto Mais" (Means "Less Is More"), which combines the texture of classical fado instruments, the Portuguese guitar, the acoustic guitar and the bass, with that of the violin, the accordion, the piano and even the harp. Once more, she sang António Lobo Antunes, but also Fernando Pessoa and João Monge, one of the most appreciated Portuguese lyrics-writer. The first album to be released in the USA was "Garras dos Sentidos" ("Claws of