SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Renowned Brazilian rock singer and songwriter Rita Lee, an icon of the Tropicalia artistic movement, died on Tuesday after a two-year battle with lung cancer, her family confirmed. She was 75.
“We announce the death of Rita Lee at her home in Sao Paulo late last night, surrounded by all the love of her family, as she always wanted,” a statement posted on the singer’s Instagram account said, inviting the public to her wake on Wednesday.
Rita Lee Jones de Carvalho was born on Dec. 31, 1947, in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city.
She was a central artist in Brazil’s politically charged Tropicalia movement, which emerged in defiance to a two-decade military dictatorship starting in 1964, and her work at the time was frequently censored.
With more than 55 million records sold, her songs touched on issues related to feminism and sex in an era when such issues were taboo. Lee was also well known for her animal rights activism and veganism.
(Reporting by Steven Grattan; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
