Concha Buika

María Concepción Balboa Buika (born 11 May 1972), known as Concha Buika or just Buika, is a Spanish singer. Her album Niña de Fuego was nominated for the 2008 Latin Grammy Award for Album of the Year and La Noche Más Larga was nominated for Best Latin Jazz Album at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. Biography Concha Buika was born on 11 May 1972, in Palma de Mallorca in Spain, the daughter of the late writer Juan Balboa and Honorina Buika. Her paternal side, the Balboa, is of distant Cuban descent. Her brother Guillermo "Guillem" Balboa was born in Equatorial Guinea and he is the current alcalde of Alaró, her brother is an actor who has worked on various TV series, such as Aída, El Secreto de Puente Viejo and Anclados, and in movies like Palmeras en la nieve, Villaviciosa de al lado and Señor, dame paciencia. Armando Buika, another of her siblings, is also an actor "Stop Over in Hell" movie and TV series 'Aguila Roja'. Her brother Guillem and her parents were political exiles of their native Equatorial Guinea and arrived to Spain in 1969, three years before Buika's birth. She currently lives in Miami, Florida, United States. Buika is a singer, poet, composer and music producer. Her music draws on a wide range of influences, from jazz and flamenco to pop, soul and African polyrhythm. She began her career as a drummer and bassist, turning to singing only because "in Spain nobody wanted a female drummer, and I got tired of hearing no, no, no." Buika then gained fame singing coplas in Madrid nightclubs in the late 1990s. She has been compared to Nina Simone, Chavela Vargas, Cesaria Evora, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, and Amy Winehouse. In 2000, Buika released her first album Mestizuo (2000, Producciones Blau S.L.). This was followed by Buika (2005, DRO) and a trilogy produced by music producer Javier Limón: Mi Niña Lola (My Girl Lola - 2006, DRO), Niña de Fuego (Girl of Fire - 2008, Warner), which included her first book of poems, and El Ultimo Trago (The Last Sip - 2009, Warner), an anthology album featuring Chucho Valdés, Cuba's standard-bearing pianist, and songs associated with Chavela Vargas, the Mexican ranchera singer.