Verão Vibes: Your Luso Summer Soundtrack
- liveLUSO
- Jun 23
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 30
A Spotify playlist of Portuguese-language songs for summer road trips, beach days, and sunset cocktails.
We're kicking off summer with a gift from us to you: a specially curated playlist for a luso summer.
Enjoy this effervescent blend of musical genres that'll take you from seaside sunbaths to sunset cocktails and back. Bringing together all of our communities, we only included songs from lusophone artists singing in European, Brazilian, or African Portuguese.
Preview our "vibes de verão" Spotify playlist or keep reading to learn more about some of the featured artists.
Hover your mouse over the playlist and scroll. Press play to preview a song.
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MARO
Described as Portugal's Billie Eilish, MARO (aka Mariana Brito da Cruz Forjaz Secca) is a singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist born in Lisbon. She is classically trained and studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, though her guitar skills are self taught. Her voice will send you in a trance — breathy and effortless, her lulls suspend in mid-air.
Her song, "Chiquitinha," is sung in Portuguese and English (one of a few instances where Portuguese lyrics appear on her Lifeline album with Nasaya). According to MARO, it's a precursor to a sentimental song about her grandfather — Saudade, Saudade — which she sang to represent Portugal at Eurovision 2022 and placed in the top 10! She's also been featured on NPR's Tiny Desk.
Calema
Originally from São Tomé and Princípe, brothers Fradique and António Mendes Ferreira are the duo behind Calema. Their sound is a vibrant fusion of pop, Afro-pop, R&B, electronic, and Kizomba. Over the past 15 years, they've forged a successful music career that's brought African rhythms and melodies into the Portuguese mainstream.
In June 2025, Calema made music history in the luso-sphere when they became the first Portuguese-language artists to headline Portugal's largest stage, Estádio da Luz. Seating over 65,000 people, the arena is typically packed with Benfica soccer fans or international artists with a massive, global following.
Mari Froes
An up-and-coming singer-songwriter from Goiânia, Brazil, Mariana Froes or Mari Froes embodies the next wave of MPB (Música Popular Brasileira). She blends elements of classic Brazilian genres like samba and bossa nova with modern, indie sounds — and is even bringing electronica into the mix with unexpected collaborations.
The real star though is Mari's soft, soulful vocals which have cut through a sea of TikTok singers. Her stripped back rendition of "Figa de Guiné" (originally by the samba singer, Alcione) went viral on TikTok, reaching over 72 million views. Giving it yet another twist, her remix of the song with French electronic group, Trinix, infuses it with tropical vibes that transport you to a balmy, night swaying under palm trees and sipping on caipirinhas.
NAPA
NAPA's humble beginnings started on the sofa. Their name is a nod to their original band name, Men on the Couch, and refers to a leather fabric used to make...wait for it....couches. They started recording in 2019 but only this year did the indie group from Madeira blast into national acclaim.
They won RTP's Festival da Canção and represented Portugal at Eurovision 2025 with their hit song "Deslocado." Showcasing their trademark romantic pop, the song is an homage to Madeira that found its way into the heart of the people. Lyrics like "mãe, olha à janela que eu 'tou a chegar" (look out the window mom, 'cause I'm arriving) and "carrego o sossego de poder voltar" (I hold the peace of being able to return), deeply resonated with the Portuguese and its diaspora communities around the world who understand the longing of home all too well.
Elida Almeida
Cesaria Évora put Cabo Verde on the musical map. And women like Elida Almeida (born on Santiago Island) are keeping it there. Not only is she one of this generation's leading female singers, she's also a composer for several others including Nancy Viera, Mayra Andrade, and Lucibela.
Her music's lively rhythms are sung in her native Creole, a Portuguese-based creole spoken across Cabo Verde, and marry a variety of the country's traditional genres like batuque, coladeira, funaná, tabanka, and morna with contemporary pop, jazz, and Latin influences. In 2025, she brought the pulse of Cabo Verde to the world with an appearance on Tiny Desk x globalFEST.
Carolina Deslandes
Singer-songwriter Carolina Deslandes was born in Lisbon and launched her musical career with a 3rd place win on Ídolos Portugal (Portugal's version of American Idol) in 2010. Since then, she's used her lyrical prowess and angelic tone to capture listeners, often challenging them to find her clever musings among quickfire refrains.
Carolina has become a permanent fixture across Portuguese pop music. Perhaps she's most known for fearlessly experimenting with diverse genres in her own music as well as in collaborations with Portuguese artists including Diogo Piçarra, MARO, Iolanda, Rui Veloso, and Sam the Kid, just to name a few. She's also appeared as a judge on The Voice Portugal and its version for kids, mentoring the next cohort of Portugal's aspiring singers.
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