Brazilian singer Elza Soares dies at 91, was samba icon

Singer Elza Soares, one of Brazil’s most beloved music icons, died Thursday in her Rio de Janeiro home, her family announced on social media. She was 91 and died of natural causes.

Soares was born to a poor family in June 1930 in a Rio de Janeiro slum. Her father, a factory worker, forced her to marry a man 10 years her senior when she was just 12 years old. Her first of eight children was born a year later.

In 1953, she launched her musical career hoping to make more money to support her family by participating in a talent competition at a local radio station. By the early ‘60s, she became popular across Brazil singing samba.

Throughout her prolific, decades-long career, Soares grew to embrace other musical genres — including jazz, soul, afro-funk, rap, punk and electronica — recording 36 critically acclaimed studio albums that led her to be named the “singer of the millennium” by the BBC in 1999.

In 2015 Soares earned her only Latin Grammy — at age 79 — for her “A Mulher do Fim do Mundo” (“The Woman of the End of the World”) album.

Still active until her last days, Soares’s last album, 2019′s “Planeta Fome” (”Planet Hunger”) was considered one of the 25 best Brazilian albums of the second half of that year by the Sao Paulo Association of Art Critics.

Last month, she was featured in a documentary series honoring Black women artists who paved the way for others.

Soares “moved the world with her voice, her strength and her determination,” her family posted Thursday afternoon on her official Facebook and Instagram pages, adding that she “will forever be in the history of music and in our hearts and the thousands of fans around the world.”

“Just like Elza Soares wanted, she sang until the end,” they added.

The beloved singer, who was married to Brazilian soccer legend Garrincha for 16 years, died exactly 39 years after his death.