MERCEDES SOSA, 74
Argentine singer, champion of social justice
Mercedes Sosa, an Argentine singer who emerged as an electrifying voice of conscience throughout Latin America for songs that championed social justice in the face of government repression, died Sunday at a medical clinic in Buenos Aires. She had liver, kidney and heart ailments.
With a rich contralto voice, Ms. Sosa was foremost a compelling singer whose career spanned five decades. She performed with entertainers as varied as rock star Sting, the Cuban singer-songwriter Pablo Milanes and folk singer Joan Baez, who said she was so moved by Ms. Sosa's "tremendous charisma" and emotive firepower that she once dropped to her knees and kissed Ms. Sosa's feet.
Ms. Sosa once declared that "artists are not political leaders. The only power they have is to draw people into the theater." While not defining herself as a political activist, Ms. Sosa asserted herself in the nueva cancion musical movement of the 1960s and 1970s that blended traditional folk rhythms with politically charged lyrics about the poor and disenfranchised.
This "new song" movement, formed by singers, poets and songwriters with Marxist leanings, cast light on the struggle against government brutality and the plight of the downtrodden throughout the hemisphere.
Ms. Sosa came under official harassment and intimidation by the right-wing, nationalist junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. The government was responsible for the deaths and disappearances of an estimated 30,000 real and perceived leftists, and Ms. Sosa transformed her sold-out concerts into rallies against the abuses of power.
Her songs were banned from Argentine radio and television, and she courted arrest by singing anthems of agrarian reform. Unable to earn a living or speak out as an opponent of the regime, she moved in exile to Europe in 1979 and lived for three years in France and Spain.
Sosa returned to Argentina shortly before the dictatorship crumbled, and she found that her popularity had risen to a dramatic new peak. At home, her concerts attracted tens of thousands of ticket buyers, and her albums sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
Abroad, she was a star attraction as well, and a political celebrity. She received a 10-minute standing ovation for a 1987 concert at Carnegie Hall and received ecstatic reviews when appearing in other major American cities.
