Rita Lee Jones de Carvalho was born on December 31, 1947, in São Paulo. She was the youngest daughter of an American dentist and an Italian housewife. Rita started her music career as a teenager and in the late 1960s, she joined the band Os Mutantes, along with the brothers Arnaldo Baptista and Sérgio Dias.
Rita was a fan of English and North American rock, but she also kept up with the latest Brazilian musical trends. She was a fusion of Brazilian culture and global cosmopolitanism, at a time when bossa nova dominated the music scene and the electric guitar was frowned upon.
Suddenly, the freckled, red-headed, half-American girl seemed to have everything to do with the Tropicalist movement that was beginning to take shape in the minds of artists like Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.
"I finally discovered my Brazilian side...I am a mix of everything. I am as Brazilian as Pelé...or even more so," said Lee.
In the early 1970s, Rita Lee left Os Mutantes and began performing with the band Tutti Fruti. During this time, amidst the dictatorship, some of her songs were censored, and she was even arrested in 1976 while pregnant with her first child.
Lee achieved absolute success in her partnership with her husband Roberto de Carvalho. During the 1980s, her albums sold millions of copies, featuring timeless hits such as Lança Perfume, Baila Comigo, Flagra, Doce Vampiro, and many more.
Militancy
In addition to her music career, Rita was also an advocate for important causes. In the 1990s, she became one of the first voices to speak up for the preservation of the Amazon Rainforest and the rights of indigenous peoples.
In the last decade, Rita Lee has gradually moved away from the spotlight. Her last studio album was released in 2012, and her last concert was in 2013, on São Paulo's anniversary. During the pandemic, she even gave an online performance with her husband Roberto de Carvalho.
In 2021, she released the song Change, in French, and was also honored with a major exhibition at the Museum of Image and Sound, in São Paulo. That same year she was diagnosed with lung cancer and began treatment, making her public appearances even more rare.
Rita Lee was known for her irreverent personality, which was her most remarkable characteristic. Despite being commonly referred to as the "Queen of Brazilian Rock," she rejected this title, considering it to be too cliché. In a Rolling Stone Brazil interview towards the end of last year, she revealed that she preferred to be known as the Patroness of Liberty.
Tributes
On social media, fans, family members, and fellow artists paid tribute to Rita Lee.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed his condolences on Twitter, stating that "Rita Lee's creativity and daring transformed Brazilian music. Her humor and eloquence spared nothing and no one."
She challenged and overcame machismo both in her personal life and in the music industry, serving as an inspiration to generations of women in rock and the arts. Her legacy, expressed through her music and books, will never be forgotten by the millions of fans she amassed worldwide. To her sons Beto, João, and Antônio, her family, and friends, I offer my deepest sympathies. Rita, you will be missed but never forgotten.
Margareth Menezes, the Minister of Culture, hailed Rita Lee as a " revolutionary woman" and an emblem of Brazilian popular music.
