Brazilian sertanejo icon Marília Mendonça died this afternoon, when a private plane she was aboard crashed in Minas Gerais state. She was on her way to perform a concert in the city of Caratinga, just 12 kilometers from where her aircraft crash-landed. All five of the plane’s crew and passengers — including Ms. Mendonça — lost their lives in the accident.
Aged just 26, Marília Mendonça was undoubtedly one of the biggest stars in Brazilian popular music, being among the leading exponents of the Brazilian country subgenre of sofrência — literally “suffering” — defined by its yearning ballads about love and betrayal.
A Latin Grammy winner in 2019, Ms. Mendonça’s live album Todos os Cantos went triple platinum. The lead track on the album, “Ciumeira,” has recorded almost 185 million plays on Spotify.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, once social isolation measures came into force in Brazil, Marília Mendonça organized a series of YouTube live concerts, in which the diminutive singer belted out her classics in her thick contralto voice from the comfort of her own living room — to a whopping audience of 3.31 million users. It was the most-viewed YouTube live music broadcast in history, and the video has since had 55 million views.
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