Gal Costa, Brazilian singer and music legend, has died at the age of 77

The singer Gal Costa, one of the most prominent and popular voices in Brazil, an icon of the tropicalista movement that marked the popular music of the South American country in the late 1960s, has died at the age of 77, the press office of the artist.

His cause of death and other details about his death were not disclosed.

Maria das Graças Penna Burgos was born in the city of Salvador and began her career as a singer in the 1960s, after meeting the also famous artist Caetano Veloso. Together with him, he was one of the outstanding figures of tropicalism, which also had among its exponents Maria Bethania, Gilbert Gil y Tom Zé.

Gil, currently a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, lamented the death of her friend through her Twitter account.

“Very sad and shocked by the death of my sister Gaúcha @GalCosta,” he wrote.

With external influences such as the use of the electric guitar, tropicalismo emerged in the late 1960s, at the height of censorship during the military dictatorship and generating controversy among the ardent followers of Brazilian popular music, who saw it as a foreignness

Last month, the singer canceled her concert at the festival Primavera Sound and all his performances until the end of November, while he was recovering from an operation to remove a lump in his nasal cavity.

Among the singer’s greatest hits are “Chuva de Prata” and “Día de Domingo”, a duet with Tim Maia.