Singer Gal Costa, legend of Brazilian music with a crystalline voice and muse of tropicalism, died on Wednesday at the age of 77, her press officer told AFP.
“Unfortunately, we confirm this information,” said Gabriela Carvalhão, without specifying the causes of death.
Gal Costa had to cancel a concert at the Primavera Sound festival in Sao Paulo last weekend after undergoing surgery in September to remove a nodule from the nasal cavity.
She had a 16-year-old adopted son. Born in Salvador de Bahia, she was one of the leading figures of tropicalism at the end of the 60s, along with other legendary singers such as Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso.
“I am very touched and saddened by the death of my sister Gal Costa,” tweeted Gilberto Gil, 80.
“Gal Costa was one of the greatest singers in the world, one of the main artists who carried the name and the sound of Brazil all over the world. […] Our country is losing one of its great voices, ”responded President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Instagram.
Eternal muse of tropicalism
Thanks to her crystalline voice and her charisma, the singer has been elevated to the rank of eternal muse of tropicalism.
With her abundant brown hair and her devastating smile, she gave a special charm to the songs of her friend Caetano Veloso, Tom Jobim, Chico Buarque, Milton Nascimento and many other composers, throughout her career.
Gal Costa became a legend in Brazilian popular music with her interpretations of Baby, Chuva de Prata Where Divino maravilhosoand about thirty recorded discs.
During her adolescence in Salvador de Bahia, she met people who marked her for life: Caetano Veloso, her sister Maria Bethania and Gilberto Gil, Bahian artists whom she then followed in Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s.
“Gal came from Bahia, like me, to try to become a professional singer. She never wanted to do anything else, ”says Caetano Veloso in his book Tropical Verdade (tropical truth).
It was in duet with him that Gal Costa launched his first record, domingoin 1967.
The following year, she took part in the collective album that would revolutionize Brazilian music: Tropicalia or Panis and Circensisthe starting point of tropicalism, which advocates cultural openness and the universality of music.
With Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Zé and the group Os Mutantes, she sang in several titles of this iconic counter-culture record which mixed samba, bossa nova, jazz and psychedelic rock.
In 1969, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil had to go into exile in London after being arrested by the military regime.
Gal Costa, she assured that she had never been interrogated during the dictatorship (1964-1985), even if the cover of her disc India (1973), which shows her topless, was censored.
early calling
Born in Salvador on September 26, 1945, under the name of Maria da Graça Costa Penna Burgos, she would have seen the birth of her vocation for song while she was still in her mother’s womb…
Pregnant, Mariah Costa Penna, nicknamed “Dedé”, stuck a small transistor on her stomach, so that her daughter would soak up the music.
“My daughter, you will be a great singer”, she said, according to Tom Zé, her neighbor during her childhood.
“When she came out of that womb, she came with that predestined voice,” he added.
Intuitive and self-taught, Gal Costa has never taken any singing lessons. His greatest influence: Joao Gilberto, the father of Bossa Nova who died in 2019, also from Bahia.
One day, after an improvised audition, he said to her: “you are the greatest singer in Brazil”.
With her soft, high-pitched voice, she became the muse of tropicalism.
She has even been compared to Janis Joplin because of her rebellious sensuality in the midst of a dictatorship.
Her presence on stage, her colorful and sometimes provocative outfits, her Afro cut in the 70s, made her a sex symbol, far from the image of the shy teenager of her debut.
Permanent reinvention
After tropicalism, Gal Costa did not hesitate to change register, from the interpretation of classic carnival samba songs to rock, soul, disco, not to mention the credits of “telenovelas”.
During the coronavirus pandemic, she celebrated her 75th birthday with a concert broadcast live on YouTube.
Winner of a Latin Grammy in 2011, Gal Costa has always been committed, particularly to the feminist cause, although she has remained discreet about her political convictions.
This did not prevent her from strongly criticizing the cultural policy of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
She’s managed to keep her private life out of the spotlight, but surprised her fans in 2021 by posting a photo of her adopted son Gabriel on social media on his 16th birthday.
The singer later revealed that she could not be pregnant, but that she had decided to adopt in 2007, at over 60 years old: “He gave me a lot of life, I rejuvenated thanks to him “.