Born Maria do Céu Whitaker Poças on 17th April 1980 in São Paulo, Brazil, her father was a composer, arranger, and musicologist. It was from him that she learned to appreciate Brazil's classical music composers, particularly Heitor Villa-Lobos and Ernesto Nazaré, as well as popular musicians like Orlando Silva. By the age of fifteen she had decided to become a musician, and by her late teens she had studied music theory, as well as the violão (nylon-stringed Brazilian guitar).