Gal Costa, one of Brazil’s most revered singers and a central figure in the Tropicália counterculture artistic movement that emerged during the repressive military dictatorship lasting from 1964 to 1985, has died aged 77.
Until 1969, the highest-profile artists of the Tropicália movement, which sought to undermine military rule via art and peaceful disobedience rather than through the leftist guerrilla activity of the time, were singer-songwriters Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. When they fled the country, under threat of prison or worse from the regime, Costa made sure their music stayed in circulation through evocative performance.
