As soon as she arrives at the headquarters of Rosas de Ouro, a popular samba school in São Paulo, Leci Brandão apologises for being late. Coupled with the megacity’s usual traffic, her agenda at its legislative assembly kept her busy longer than expected. “My mission is trying to solve other people’s problems,” she says after greeting school staff. A lawmaker with Brazil’s Communist party since 2011, Brandão – who turns 80 on Thursday – is the first Black woman to occupy a seat in São Paulo parliament this long and only the second Black congresswoman in its history.
While she had never imagined herself in office, institutional politics unfolded as an extension of her music. Brandão is also a trailblazing samba musician, one of the first female composers in the male-dominated genre, breaking through in 1976 with politically engaged songs that exposed and opposed the conservatism and inequalities of Brazilian society.
