ou often hear a praying mantis before you see it. As a child, Elza Soares always liked listening to their buzz – the noise reminded her of her own raspy register – and she tried to emulate them with her voice. Then, when carrying buckets of water on her head to and from her house, she realised she could actually sing. “When I picked them up, I’d groan and, eventually, I realised that gave off a [musical] sound. So, I continued doing it: carrying the buckets and singing.” Now 90 – though accounts vary, and even she isn’t sure of her age – Soares has evolved those buzzes and groans into one of Brazil’s most revered voices. Born in a favela slum in Rio de Janeiro to a washerwoman and a factory worker around 1930, she has recorded 36 studio albums, performed at the 2016 Olympic opening ceremony in Rio, and was voted the greatest singer of the last millennium by the BBC in 1999. She has released a string of singles this year – the newest is out this month, with the band Titãs – and still can’t bear to imagine a life without singing: “God forbid!” Soares is calling from her seaside apartment in Copacabana. When we meet via Zoom, I get a flash of bright red nails when her hand pops into the frame, and as always her expressive, almond shaped eyes are glamorously made up. The upstairs neighbours are renovating, and she’s trying to tell me how she’s doing when we’re interrupted by a loud, thumping sound. “It’s never-ending,” she says, slightly annoyed. But otherwise, she’s in a good mood. “I’m doing great,” she says. “I live a peaceful life, man. I don’t leave the house. I exercise, listen to music. That’s how I spend my days.” It’s a long way from the favela, but when I ask about her childhood, she assures me: “I remember everything.” She and her mother would listen to songs on the radio together, while father played the guitar and sang, “and I’d sing with him – it was beautiful. I grew up in a very poor, modest household. But it was also a really loving, healthy, happy place.” Soares clearly prefers to hold on to her fonder memories – she won’t elaborate on the tougher times in her youth. At 12, her father forced her into a marriage with a local boy after he saw them fighting and assumed he’d raped her. By 13, she’d given birth to her first child, and at 21 she’d already mothered seven children, two of whom died young. In 1953, Soares went on a radio talent show, looking to make some money to buy medicine for her son. At first, the host made fun of her (she was dressed in tattered clothes that looked far too big on her small frame), but by the time she had finished singing, he’d already deemed her a star. It was only in 1960, however, after a brief stint in Argentina and some time spent singing in bars around Rio, that she got her first record deal. That same year, her rendition of Lupicínio Rodrigues’ Se Acaso Você Chegasse became a hit, cementing her status as Brazil’s samba queen. Nowadays, she tends to distance herself from the label. “Look, samba is the root of all virtue, right? Samba is what got me started. But I think, if you can sing, you have to sing everything. You can’t let yourself get pigeonholed into a single rhythm.” She says it always bothered her when people made assumptions about what she could and couldn’t do based on her race: “Because I was black, because I had a nice body, [people thought] I had to sing samba. But no, I had to sing everything.” Why change things up so often? “Because of course [you should]! You can’t be stuck in time.” Within the last decade, she’s branched out into countless other styles, and collaborated with a number of young Brazilian artists, from rapper and singer Flávio Renegado, to Kiko Dinucci (of Metá Metá), to members of the Afrobeat group Bixiga 70. Lyrically, her recent work is grittier and more political than ever. In Maria da Vila Matilde, a song on her 2016 album The Woman at the End of the World, she cautions an abuser against hitting her again, telling him: “You’re going to regret raising your hand at me.” Likewise, her two most recent releases, Deus é Mulher and Planeta Fome are rich with social commentary, on topics ranging from racism to class inequality and LGBTQ+ rights. So it strikes me as odd when I ask for her thoughts on Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right president, Soares quickly dismisses me: “I don’t talk about politics.” Why? “Because it’s not my style. I’m already engaged with politics. I am political.” She has a point – with that range of social issues, her music arguably speaks for itself – but she does offer one piece of advice: “The main problem with Brazilians is that they need to learn how to vote. Once we do that, things will be better.” Ever the optimist, Elza is inclined to think things will change for the better, in spite of everything she has been through – later in life, she’d go on to lose another son, a child she had from her marriage to football star Mané Garrincha. When I ask what’s kept her going all these years, creatively and personally, she doesn’t miss a beat: “Other people inspire me.” She tells me singing makes her feel “alive, because it means I get to spread joy. Singing motivates me. It feels like giving birth; like sharing a piece of your happiness, of your voice. I sing for everyone.” Soares still has a full day ahead of her, but before we hang up, her manager asks if I want to see the view. He flips the camera around so it faces the bustling street outside. Soares tells me she loves to sit and sunbathe – often “in the nude” – by the window. “I look at the sky, the ocean, water, people – it’s beautiful,” she says. “Total freedom.”