BUENOS AIRES, Argentina Argentine folk singer Mercedes Sosa, the “voice of Latin America" whose music inspired opponents of South America's brutal military regimes and led to her forced exile in Europe, died today, her family said. She was 74.
Sosa was best known for signature tunes such as “Gracias a la Vida" ("Thanks to Life") and “Si se calla el cantor" ("If the Singer Is Silenced"). She had been in the hospital for more than two weeks with liver problems and had since been suffering from progressive kidney failure and cardiac arrest.
Her latest album, “Cantora 1," is nominated for three prizes in next month's Latin Grammy awards in Las Vegas, including album of the year and best folkloric album.
Affectionately dubbed “La Negra" or “The Black One" by fans for her mixed Indian and distant French ancestry, Sosa was born July 9, 1935, to a poor family in the sugarcane country of northwest Tucuman province.
Early on she felt the allure of popular traditions and became a teacher of folkloric dance.
When she was 15, friends impressed by her talent encouraged Sosa to enter a local radio contest under the pseudonym “Gladys Osorio." She won a two-month contract with the broadcaster -- the first of many accolades over a career that continued until her final days.
“I didn't choose to sing for people," Sosa said in a recent interview on Argentine television. “Life chose me to sing."
By the 1970s she was recognized as one of the South American troubadours who gave rise to the “nuevo cancionero" (New Songbook) movement -- singers including Chile's Victor Jara and Violeta Parra, Argentina's Victor Heredia and Uruguay's Alfredo Zitarrosa who mixed leftist politics with poetic musings critical of the ruling juntas and their iron-fisted curtailment of civil liberties and human rights abuses.
In 1972, Sosa released the socially and politically charged album “Hasta la Victoria" ("Till Victory"). Her sympathies with communist movements and support for leftist parties attracted close scrutiny and censorship at a time when blending politics with music was a dangerous occupation -- Jara was tortured and shot to death by soldiers following Chile's 1973 military coup.
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