Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Rafael Barata has recorded and performed with several internationally acclaimed artists including Emilio Santiago, Rosa Passos, Eliane Elias, Marc Johnson, Kenny Barron, Edu Lobo, Leny Andrade, Lisa Ono, Herbie Hancock, Kenny Werner, Toots Thielemans, Antonia Bennett, Esperanza Spalding, Christian McBride, Ivan Lins, Milton Nascimento, Romero Lubambo, Zezé Motta, Liz Rosa, Angela Ro Ro, Nana Caymmi, Boca livre group, Paula Morelenbaum, Carol Saboya, Amanda Brecker, Maúcha and Muiza Adnet, Andréa Dutra, Mônica Salmaso, Joyce, Alcione, Luís Melodia, Zizi Possi, Flávio Venturini, Leila Pinheiro, João Bosco, Roberto Menescal, Antonio Adolfo, João Donato, JT Meirelles, Jaques Morelenbaum, Lula Galvão, Maurício Einhorn, Mario Adnet, Moacir Santos, Hélio Celso, Idriss Boudrioua, Osmar Milito, Durval Ferreira, Marcos Amorim, Daniel Garcia, Jeff Gardner, Mika Mori, Nelson Faria, Paulo Moura, Mike Moreno, Root System L.A. Group, Klaus Mueller, Dave Liebman, Ricardo Vogt, Leo Gandelman, Marcos Nimrichter, Cliff Korman, Augusto Mattoso, Leonardo Amuedo, Claudio Roditi, Guilherme Dias Gomes, Turi Collura, Spok Frevo, Hamilton de Hollanda, Gabriel Grossi, Hermeto Pascoal, Marcos Valle, Raul de Souza, Oscar Castro Neves, Dario Galante, Zé Renato, Roberta Sá, Paula Santoro, Ney Matogrosso, the Singer/drummer Wilson das Neves, Alma Thomas, Chiara Civello, Jenny Robson, Gastão and Antônio Villeroy and many others.
Since early 2000’s he has been touring around the world, performing in the most expressive Jazz festivals and Theaters with these main projects: The "Cello Samba Trio" (with Jaques Morelenbaum and Lula Galvão), spreading the Bossa Nova culture, the Grammy winner Eliane Elias (including, Marc Johnson and Rubens De La Corte) and lately with the multi Grammy winner, Dianne Reeves. You can also find Rafael at Dave Zinno’s quintet Unisphere besides top players such as Mike Tucker, Benny Bloom and Leo Genovese and at his new group, i Trio, with André Vasconcellos on bass and Eduardo Farias on piano. He is also a Multi-Nominated Grammy Winning Drummer, Eliane’s “Made in Brazil” and several nominations including the Brazilian legend, composer, piano player, arranger, publisher and educator, Antonio Adolfo.