Get the latest gossip

‘This janitor’s daughter became a state deputy’: Leci Brandão, the Brazilian samba star turned communist lawmaker

Born in poverty, Brandão became a socially conscious samba singer who satirised Rio’s bourgeoisie – then a politician championing gay rights and Black culture. As she turns 80, she recalls a remarkable life

Until the early 1980s, progressive songs were often censored as an oppressive military regime run by Brazil’s armed forces had been ruling the country since 1964: composed in 1978 but unreleased for seven years owing to tensions with her label, which thought her music too heavy, Brandão’s Zé do Caroço tells the true story of a favela leader who helped raise his community’s political consciousness. Her mother and grandmother, meanwhile, were members of the Mangueira samba school, and her father’s eclectic 78rpm records – from Nat King Cole classics to Jacob do Bandolim’s choros to Bienvenido Granda’s boleros – inspired her curiosity for music. From then on, “people would question why I composed so many songs about social issues,” says Brandão, whose music shed light on themes as diverse as Afro-Brazilian religions, Black feminism, freedom of expression and the Amazon: “I wrote about things that messed with my head.

Get the Android app