SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian singer Gal Costa, one of the most distinctive voices from the country’s Tropicalia movement, has died at 77, her press team said on Wednesday.
Maria das Graças Penna Burgos was born in the northeastern city of Salvador in 1945 and began her musical career in 1960 after meeting fellow singer Caetano Veloso. Along with Maria Bethânia, Gilberto Gil and Tom Zé, Costa was part of a wave of singers from the state of Bahia who became central players in the Tropicalia movement.
Fusing local folk and Afro-Brazilian traditions with psychedelic rock influences from abroad, Tropicalia was a politically charged movement that emerged in defiance to Brazil’s military dictatorship at the time.
Gil lamented the passing of Costa on social media.
“I’m very saddened and impacted by the death of my Gaúcha sister,” he tweeted.
Costa was still touring regularly, although she had canceled shows for the rest of November to recover from an operation removing a nodule from her nasal passage.
Her press team did not specify the cause of her death.
(Reporting by Eduardo Simoes; Editing by Brad Haynes and Rosalba O’Brien)
