"Carminho, who recently collaborated with Rosalia on the song "Memória" and released her latest album "Eu Vou Morrer de Amor ou Resistir" at the end of 2025, knows a thing or two about the Portuguese music tradition known as fado. "I started to practice while in my mother's belly—she's a singer, and she owned a fado house in Lisbon, and my brothers and sisters and I were all surrounded by fado.""
"The melancholic sound of the genre, whose early 19th century roots continue to grow in the country's modern music scene, is best experienced in a cozy fado house, or fado bar, where the singers croon with zero amplification (it's all natural acoustics here). The songs, often about lost love or nostalgia, are moving even if to guests who don't understand the language. "Fado is it's own language," Carminho says."
"Within Portugal, fado has had its ups and downs in popularity, but the genre is finally seeing a new era embrace its sound with vigor. "When I started performing, my friends didn't want to listen, and the generation before them was even less interested. In some ways fado was tied to the old Portugal-with political issues, with the dictator-but about 15 years ago, people began to understand that the music itself was stronger than the preconceptions people had about it.""
Carminho grew up immersed in fado; her mother owned a fado house in Lisbon and she began singing as a child, performing publicly at 12. Fado is a melancholic, early-19th-century Portuguese musical tradition often performed in cozy fado houses without amplification, featuring songs about lost love and nostalgia. The genre's popularity waned across generations due to political associations, but a cultural resurgence began about 15 years ago and intensified after the 2008 economic crisis, when renewed pride and small businesses celebrated Portuguese identity and cultural richness, helping fado regain prominence in the modern music scene.
Read at Conde Nast Traveler
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