Listening to Hawaiian folk artist and activist Paula Fuga’s TED Talk, “[Believe in Yourself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VMDmBGrBlE),” Cynthia Hussey’s life transformed. By the end of her talk, Fuga picked up her ukulele and performed a fittingly uplifting song, “The Sun Will Rise,” off her 2006 debut _Lilikoi_. In that moment, everything shifted for the Brazilian actress, singer, songwriter, and artist, who had always dreamed of pursuing music.
When her husband Wayne Hussey, of the British rock band The Mission, gifted her a ukulele for their wedding anniversary, Cinthya began teaching herself to play, and by 2019 starting covering some of her favorite songs with the instrument on YouTube, including The Cure’s “A Thousand Hours,” Depeche Mode’s 1987 single “Behind the Wheel,” “Hey” off Pixies’ _Doolittle,_ and a ukulele rendition of “Cry” by Cigarettes After Sex.
“The ukulele is such a friendly instrument,” says Hussey. “It's small. It's so soft, and I can carry it anywhere. I go to the garden, and I take it with me to the living room or take it with me go up to the bedroom. You can't drag a piano everywhere.”
Living in Brazil, during the pandemic, Hussey says she has much to be grateful for, despite the country seeing some of the highest rates of COVID-19, and moving in and out a “Red Phase” since the pandemic started. Housed in the countryside of Brazil with her parents and Wayne, Hussey was able to take advantage of the time “off” from filming to revisit music and painting again and begin work on her debut album.
“Being confined and not having social interaction and interaction and missing family friends and everything else has obviously have affected the lyrics and even the mood of the songs in a bit in a way but I'm trying to still be hopeful and positive, otherwise we’ll go crazy,” says Hussey. “We've got to try and see the light at the end of this horrific tunnel.”
Playing the ukulele since 2015, Hussey eventually started using the instrument to write songs, releasing debut singles “[Every Day is Like Sunday](https://youtu.be/avO2kQdP1-I)” and “My Heart Is a Ghost Town.” For Hussey, the ukulele is tool, and has been life changing, but it won’t be prominent on her debut album. “It opened up a whole new universe of expression,” says Hussey. “I played the piano before and I was learning the flute, but the ukulele helped me write songs.”
Originally written as a poem years earlier, “[My Heart Is a Ghost Town](https://youtu.be/0ljwJ9ROzYM)” is the first song Hussey wrote by herself and was later remixed by artist [Julian Shah-Taylor](https://youtu.be/qnWaTHFSgYw) in 2021. “There is a sensuality to her voice that is effortless, which is as all real sensuality should be,” says Wayne, who produced both singles at his home studio, where the couple reside just outside of Sao Paulo, in 2020.
Throughout 2020, Hussey, also teamed up with her husband again with the rock supergroup Beauty in Chaos for two versions of the “[The Delicate Balance of All Things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnHtQ2o9gLU),” written by Wayne and the band’s founder Michael Ciravolo, including a version remixed by Tim Palmer (David Bowie, U2, Pearl Jam), and contributed her art for the cover Beauty in Chaos album _Out Of Chaos Comes._
In her writing, Hussey says she hasn’t set any specific parameters, but there is something more captivating in the spirit of each song.
“I just started writing songs and writing lyrics, and there is this kind of a mood,” she says. “We're going everywhere with the stuff we're working on, and it’s slightly dark… some shiny dark things.”
Extracting her own personal experiences is a new dynamic for the artist, who often finds herself singing writing in the third person. “It's a very strange and new feeling for me, because as an actress, I have always worked with other people's words,” says Hussey. “Of course, I could express my own feelings through other people's words, but now I'm expressing everything about me in the words. It’s quite an exposed feeling, but it's been very therapeutic and cathartic as well.”
She adds, “If it is cathartic to other people, or therapeutic in a way, I think that’s the biggest gift for any artist.”
Revolving around human relations, relationships and what touches her—whether a film or other mediums of art—Hussey writes from the perspective of human emotions.
“I'm interested in human feelings, in human interaction, and how we deal with our darkness, with our monsters, and how it affects us and finding that light,” she says. "It’s all very critical for us to listen and take in and kind of dissect with our ears, and I can't avoid being affected by politics as well, so that is also in some of the lyrics.”
Reflecting on her “later” start in music, Hussey has no regrets. Everything happens in its right time. “I think everything I started in life, I started everything very late,” shares Hussey.
Pulling from some older fragments of songs and poetry she had written years earlier, Hussey is now moving through a new narrative, in music. “Sometimes it’s a film or TV series—a word or a feeling brings me an idea or a vision, and I write it down very quickly, so I don’t forget, then develop it. Sometimes I'm playing my ukulele and the strumming of the chords inspires a word, and from that word comes a sentence, and from that sentence comes a feeling.”
She adds, “Everything can sparkle, and bring inspiration.”
