Vinicius Cantuária is a Brazilian singer, songwriter, guitarist, drummer, and percussionist. He is associated with bossa nova and Brazilian jazz.
Born in the Amazonian city of Manaus, Cantuária grew up in Rio de Janeiro and moved to New York City in the mid-1990s. His career spans several zones of Brazilian music. He founded the Brazilian rock group O Terço in the 1970s, released six solo albums in Brazil in the 1980s that include his hit songs "Só Você" and "Lua e Estrela", and pioneered the world of neo-Brazilian music with his first international album Sol Na Cara in 1996.
Since moving to the United States, Cantuária has been a leading figure in the downtown New York jazz and contemporary music scenes. His albums include collaborations with Arto Lindsay, Bill Frisell, Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson, Brad Mehldau, Marc Ribot, David Byrne, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and John Zorn.
In 1998, Cantuária contributed the song "Luz de Candeeiro" to the AIDS benefit compilation album Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon produced by the Red Hot Organization.
Cantuária has said that jazz, rock, and bossa nova are "three planets that move in one and the same orbit."