Monte was born in Rio de Janeiro, daughter of the engineer Carlos Saboia Monte and Sylvia Marques de Azevedo Monte. On her father's side, she is descended from the Saboias, one of the oldest Italian families in Brazil. She studied singing, piano, and drums as a child, and began studying opera singing at 14.
After failing to break through into 1980s Brazilian pop rock she went into semi-exile in Italy, where she met the famous producer Nelson Motta. Thereafter she became a hybrid of MPB diva and pop rock performer. While most of her music is in the style of modern MPB, she has also recorded traditional samba and folk tunes, largely in collaboration with such musicians and songwriters as Carlinhos Brown, Arnaldo Antunes, and Nando Reis and producer Arto Lindsay. She has also collaborated with the New York pop music vanguard, including Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Marc Ribot, Bernie Worrell and Philip Glass.