Rita Lee, Os Mutantes Co-Founder And Brazil’s “Queen Of Rock,” Dead At 75
Rita Lee, a co-founder of the legendary Tropicália rock band Os Mutantes who stood as Brazil’s “Queen of Rock,” has died. Lee’s family confirms to Reuters that she died Monday after a two-year battle with lung cancer. She was 75.
On New Year’s Eve 1947, Lee was born Rita Lee Jones de Carvalho in São Paulo. Her mother was a pianist, and as a child she gravitated strongly toward music, studying classical piano with the esteemed pianist Magdalena Tagliaferro and requesting a drum set in place of a debutante ball. In 1966, at age 18, she formed Os Mutantes with Arnaldo Baptista and Sérgio Dias. Lee and Baptista married in 1968.
Os Mutantes became one of the leading lights of Tropicália, an anti-authoritarian artistic movement that merged traditional Brazilian and African music with British and American pop and psychedelia, often performing and collaborating with other key figures such as Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Lee contributed to five Os Mutantes albums before being removed from the band by Baptista in 1972 as their marriage was coming to an end. (She refused to participate in the band’s 2006 reunion.)
By the time she split from Os Mutantes, Lee was already two albums deep into a solo career, but for the rest of the ’70s she focused on collaborations with Tutti Frutti, a blues-rock band with whom she made four more LPs. During that stint she spent a year on house arrest for marijuana possession. That same year she met her future husband and creative partner Roberto de Carvalho, with whom she had three children. They remained married until Lee’s death.
With her 1979 self-titled album, Lee launched a prolific solo career that saw her adventuring across genres and adapting with the decades. Although nicknamed the “Rainha do Rock” (Queen of Rock), she found the title tacky and preferred to be known as “Patron Saint of Freedom.” Per the BBC, in her memoir she imagined the social media reaction to her death: “Oh, I thought she’d already died, hahaha.”
In fact, loving tributes are pouring in from Lee’s peers, including this statement from Sérgio Dias of Os Mutantes:
RITA MEU GRANDE AMOR, QUE PENA… NAO QUERO FALAR SOBRE ISTO ‘E MUITO INTIMO… AGRADE’CO AOS AMIGOS… SEI AONDE ELA EST’A E ESTA EM ‘OTIMAS MAOS… OS ANJOS CANTAM, OS ARCANJOS ABAIXAM OS OLHOS E DEUS SE CURVA PARA ELA PASSAR… MEU AMOR… FOI ENCONTRAR O AMOR…
RITA MY GREAT LOVE, WHAT A SHAME… I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS ‘IT’S VERY INTIMATE… THANKS TO FRIENDS… I KNOW WHERE SHE IS AND IS IN ‘GREAT HANDS… THE ANGELS SING, THE ARCHANGELS LOWER THEIR EYES AND GOD BOWS FOR HER TO PASS… MY LOVE… WENT TO FIND LOVE…
Below, hear some of Lee’s music.
