With her striking round glasses, shoulder-length red hair and sensual verses, the Capricornian and skeptical Rita Lee has established herself as the Brazilian “Queen of Rock”. But, in addition to the albums and bold lyrics that spoke openly about sex and pleasure in the middle of the military dictatorship, she also never bowed to anyone and always said (and did) what she wanted. After all, in addition to being an icon of Brazilian music, she was also the “black sheep of the family”.
It was 1976, and the dictatorship was carrying out extensive repression of opponents of the regime when Rita Lee, aged 28, was arrested on charges of possessing marijuana. At the time, she was three months pregnant with her first child, Beto Lee, the result of her relationship with Roberto de Carvalho.
In an interview for Sheet in 1997, the artist said that it was all set up, because “I was pregnant and, like a good hippie, I didn’t use any drugs at the time”. Despite this, she has admitted, more than once, that she has experimented with drugs — although she does not recommend that younger people do so, as “they don’t do drugs like they used to.”
In 2006, in an interview for the program “Fantástico” (Globo), Rita stated that her departure from the band Os Mutantes occurred through expulsion, with the justification that she did not have “virtuosity for instruments”. In an interview with Jô Soares, Rita described the episode as “pure machismo”.
“I never had a technique, I always had musical intuition. And, at that time, there wasn’t much room for those who didn’t have technique. So, in Mutantes it was difficult, there was a time when I was only invited to play the tambourine, pure machismo.”
Always questioning the authorities, Rita Lee was sued by Sergipe military police after she interrupted a show to condemn the actions of police who searched the audience, in 2012.
In the same year, the singer made news when she lowered her pants on stage during a show in BrasÃlia. After the episode, she took to Twitter to tell “reactionaries” that she lost sponsorship because of what happened.
“Rejoice, reactionaries, I lost the sponsorship of a bank because I showed my ass.
Source: Folha
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