![]() ![]() “ has come from another planet to take over the world,” the singer-songwriter declared in her first interview with the Folha de São Paulo newspaper. Rather than retreat from performing, however, Rita Lee threw herself into music, founding the seminal psychedelic-rock group Os Mutantes in 1966 with Arnaldo Batista and Sérgio Dias. Rita Lee Jones de Carvalho’s first forays into the world of music did little to hint at the stardom to come.Īs a young girl born in São Paulo to a father of American descent and a Brazilian mother, she took classical piano lessons but, according to one newspaper report, suffered from stage fright and wet herself during one audition. When the appropriate LP found its way on to the turntable, the future king “already knew the words by heart”, the British newspaper claimed. In 1988, the Daily Mirror reported that during a British embassy banquet in Paris, the then Prince of Wales had asked for a Rita Lee record to be played. Rita Lee’s huge domestic following was matched by an army of international fans, reputedly ranging from the Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain to King Charles. “What an intense and spectacular life you had. “The world has lost one of the most unique and incredible people who ever existed,” one of her sons, João Lee, wrote on social media. The Greatest has left us … There will never be another Rita Lee,” tweeted the Brazilian rock singer Pitty.īrazil’s culture minister, the singer and composer Margareth Menezes, hailed her as a “revolutionary woman”. “I was left wanting to live my old age away from the stage, without sharing it with the public.News of Rita Lee’s death sparked an outpouring of emotion and reverence towards one of the most important figures in contemporary Brazilian music. “Getting old, for me, was a surprise, because I’ve never been old in my life,” she told the show. In an interview with the television program Fantastico in 2020, she explained that physical frailty had prompted her to leave the stage eight years earlier. “My generation suffered the claustrophobia of a brutal dictatorship, and using drugs was a way to breathe airs of freedom.” I only regret my delay in realizing that the ‘medicine’ had long since expired,” she wrote. “I recognize that my best songs were written in an altered state, and my worst too. She also referred to herself as a “rebel” and “hippie communist,” and wrote of sneaking out the windows of her house as a teenager to play, being arrested during the dictatorship for possession of marijuana, and her multiple stints in rehab clinics for drugs and alcohol. In her autobiography, published the following year, she didn’t shy from describing the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of a man who had come to fix her mother’s sewing machine. ![]() She resolved in 2015 to reinvent herself as a white butterfly. For decades, she kept her hair bright red and often wore matching lenses, a popular look that she discarded in recent years as she allowed her gray to grow out. Later in life, she became a vegan and animal rights activist. Similar songs followed, such as “Amor e Sexo” (Love and Sex) which contrasted the two in detail and “Lança Perfume” (Spray Perfume), an ode to unbridled hedonism. She was one of the first public figures in Brazil to popularize feminist themes, such as infusing the lyrics of her 1979 song “Mania de Voce” (Mania for You) with female sexuality and pleasure. But I see her as an element that distances herself from the clichés of rock.” She, from her feminine point of view, sees the clumsiness of the worn-out cliché of the male rocker, the one who plays with his legs open. “There really is a lineage of ‘girls’ tied to rock in Brazil, of which she is a legitimate representative. it was completely mythological,” the musician said. “She brought that thing on stage, in those clothes. In an interview with the music website I Have More Records Than Friends! in 2017, Lulu Santos, judge of the Brazilian version of The Voice, recalled seeing Rita Lee play autoharp at a concert. Hits on “Forbidden Fruit” include “Now Only Missing You” and “Ovelha Negra,” long played on radio stations and Brazilian soap operas. By the mid-1970s, after selling 200,000 copies of the album “Forbidden Fruit,” Lee began to be called the “queen of rock” on the music scene. Colors and creativity, as well as irony and irreverence, were Lee’s trademarks from the start, evident in the flamboyant costumes she performed in her shows. Rita Lee rose to fame with the group Os Mutantes (The Mutants), starting in 1966.
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