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Coloring the canvas: Charlotte Dos Santos in conversation [Interview]

  • October 17, 2025
  • Alice Vyvyan-Jones
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Charlotte Dos Santos is a Norwegian-Brazilian singer and composer, merging South American traditional sounds, jazz and neo soul.

First breaking out with her 2017 debut Cleo, and later solidifying her place as a singular voice with 2022’s Morfo, Dos Santos has maintained a quiet strength in the industry. Her music feels both deeply rooted and ever-evolving, with songs centred around rebirth, womanhood, heartbreak, and spiritual growth.

Almost a decade since Cleo, and in a brand new chapter of life, Dos Santos has revisited the sounds that made her. Her latest project, Neve Azul, is a beautiful homage to her multicultural heritage, her musical roots, and reimagining her craft through the eyes of motherhood.

We caught up with Charlotte to talk about Neve Azul and its musical, personal, and spiritual identity.

"When I write music, everything happens in my head before I even touch an instrument. I hear the shapes, the lines of melody, and I imagine the feelings they carry. I always want to colour the canvas." 

Before we dive into the music… what’s something you’ve been grateful for lately?

Honestly, I feel really grateful for my family, my little nuclear family (my husband and daughter). They've really been holding me. With everything going on in the world, which just feels so cold and messed up sometimes, I think having that anchor, that sense of home, means everything. 

This is the first body of work you’ve released since becoming a mother. How has motherhood influenced your relationship to music, whether in the way you write, listen, or even feel songs now?

That's a good question.

Honestly, it's still coming from the same intuitive place, but now I’m thinking more about lyrics: what I want to say, and who’s listening. Before, I used to just write whatever came to me. Now I think a bit more intentionally. I want to write something my daughter could one day listen to. It’s strange, but it’s made the music a little softer, more mellow, maybe more mature.

The name of your new project Neve Azul translates to blue snow. Tell me what this image means to you…

The idea for Neve Azul, aka "blue snow," came to me years ago, when I was driving through the Pyrenees, from Spain to France. We were up in the mountains, and the peaks were this surreal blue, and it just reminded me of Norway, of how I grew up in the snow.

I've always felt a bit torn between my Brazilian and Norwegian identities.

I was born and raised in Norway, but I’ve never really felt fully Norwegian, and never fully Brazilian either. So this project is me trying to own that in-between space. Neve Azul is a kind of homage to both sides of me. It’s also the first time I’ve written a Bossa-inspired song, which is the last track on the project. So even musically, I wanted to pay homage to that side of my heritage.

“After becoming a mother, I felt like a completely different person. It took me a while to stop asking, ‘Where’s that old Charlotte?’ and just accept that she’s not coming back. And that’s okay — because what I’m making now is true to who I am now.”

Was this a healing album, a confronting one, or something else entirely?

I think Neve Azul was a bit confronting, actually.

I wrote it right after Cleo, and it felt so different. With Cleo, a lot of the songs were sample-based. You’re working on top of something that’s already there. But with this, every little choice, every arrangement was mine, which was a first — no co-producers, no samples, just me. That made it nerve-wracking but also really freeing.  It felt huge. 

What was the deeper intention behind this album? When you talk about purpose and existence, how did those ideas guide the creative process?

This project is kind of… esoteric. I’ve always been drawn to symbols and dreams. I dream a lot, and I actually make life decisions based on my dreams. I’ve even gotten full songs from them.

The project asks: What’s written in the stars for me? What’s already mapped out, and what do I get to carve out myself? Those are the kinds of questions that kept coming up. I think I’m always trying to listen to those small signals and messages you get, even if they don’t fully make sense yet. That’s what this project is grounded in: that deeper kind of listening.

“I think the hardest part is that the music changes because you change. But it’s all still me. Just… in layers. In nuance.”

So you’re into astrology? What star sign are you?

Absolutely, I'm into it! I’m Pisces, Scorpio, Scorpio, so I’m triple water, which means a lot of emotions. I’ve always been spiritual, but after having my daughter, it was such a holy experience. I felt really connected to God, to Source — whatever you want to call the spirit.

Did your parents play a role in shaping your early musical education?

My father was obsessed with music. He would just blast it all the time — the house was never quiet. He put me on to everything. He’d be like, ‘Oh, listen to this,’ and play the Fugees when I was seven. All the music I still feel really influenced by came from him.

The first one was Erykah Badu. I’ll never forget the first time my dad played Baduizm for me — I’d never heard anything like it. It was jazzy, but also hip hop, and it blew my mind. Then it was the Fugees. Lauryn Hill was huge for me. I used to memorise all the songs, front to back. It was also Miles Davis, Mariah Carey, all the pop and soul stuff from the '90s. I feel really blessed to have grown up in that sweet spot.

“My father was obsessed with music. He would just blast it all the time — the house was never quiet.”

You studied at Berklee, where so many celebrated artists have come from, but what was the day-to-day experience actually like for you?

It was such a beautiful environment to be in because you just live and breathe music every day from nine to nine. You go from rehearsal to rehearsal to rehearsal, ensemble to ensemble. It’s also a place with so much prestige, you see Esperanza Spalding walking down the hallway, Quincy Jones randomly appearing, or Pat Metheny, just these insane jazz legends casually appearing before you. It's surreal and all-encompassing. The intro track on Cleo, "Sumer is Icumen In’" was actually a school assignment, where we had to rearrange a medieval song. That track wasn’t supposed to be on the EP, but it ended up as the intro. 

You've mentioned experiencing synesthesia, how does that sensory crossover influence your creative process when making music?

For me, it’s more like lines that move with the music, patterns that flow and shift. Each melody feels like a shape, but it’s less about solid forms and more about movement and feeling. When I write music, everything happens in my head before I even touch an instrument. I hear the shapes, the lines of melody, and I imagine the feelings they carry. I always want to colour the canvas. 

I think colour is such an interesting concept that manifests itself subconsciously without us even knowing. How much consideration do you take into colour? And what weight does blue hold as a colour for you?

Colour is so powerful. Blue is full of emotion, especially darker blues. Maybe it’s subconscious, but for me, blue is tied to the snow of my childhood in Norway and the calmness it brings. It feels beautiful and grounding–and orange is also an interesting one. For me, orange is the F major key, and it keeps coming up because of the music’s key. It's like a recurring theme in my sound.

How do you remain authentic in such an ever-changing musical landscape? 

It's tricky! You can get so entangled in the industry and numbers, you forget who you are. But people like you for who you are. I know that I don't have to change anything if it’s working.

Your voice is such a powerful part of your artistry, do you find yourself using it in other spaces or causes that matter to you?

I use it to speak up about things that really matter to me in the world. It breaks my heart when artists don’t use their power to speak up. Art is our chance to be spokespersons to the world, and not using it is devastating.

"Now, I just don’t care anymore — you’re going to like me or you’re not. I don’t have time to be ‘for everyone’." 

Connect with Charlotte Dos Santos: Instagram

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Alice Vyvyan-Jones

Alice Vyvyan-Jones is a music writer and radio producer based in Berlin. If she's not writing about music, she's talking about it.

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