Early Life
Daniela Mercuri de Almeida was born on July 28, 1965, in the Portuguese Hospital in Salvador, Bahia. Her mother is Liliana Mercuri, a social worker of Italian ancestry, and her father is António Fernando de Abreu Ferreira de Almeida, a Portuguese-born industrial mechanic. Mercury grew up in a middle class household in the Brotas neighborhood of Salvador with her four siblings: Tom, Cristiana, Vânia (who would also become a singer, billed as Vânia Abreu), and Marcos. A trouble-maker as a child, Mercury was nicknamed "drip-fire". She attended both the Ana Néri School and the Colégio Baiano.
When Mercury was eight years old, she began taking dance lessons, particularly learning classical ballet, jazz and African dances. At age 13, influenced by the work of Elis Regina, she decided to become a singer. Her repertoire consisted of bossa nova as well as the music of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Chico Buarque. To the unease of her parents, she started singing in local bars, beginning in 1980. She made her trio elétrico debut soon afterward, during the 1981 carnival. Mercury's zeal for dance eventually led her to the Federal University of Bahia, where she enrolled in the Dance School in 1984 A year later she married electronic engineer Zalther Póvoas and became a mother, giving birth to Gabriel Almeida Póvoas. A year after later she had another child, daughter Giovana Almeida Póvoas.
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