Não Identificado: Racial Ambiguity and the Sonic Blackness of Gal Costa

Abstract

Today, singer gal costa is widely considered one of Brazil ’s national treasures, a performer whose voice, musical stylings, and overall persona are lauded as essential to the legacy of Brazilian Popular Music (MPB), which is itself considered one of Brazil ’s greatest cultural exports. In a 2015 TV Globo television special celebrating her f ifty-year career as a popular music singer and performer, Costa was declared Brazil ’s greatest female singer. Affectionately referring to Costa by her childhood name, “Graçinha,” the special ’s host opens by ref lecting that “Gal Costa singing is poetry.”1 She continues to describe Costa as “extremely ref ined, and versatile,” a singer who “perfectly dominates technique and has one of the most beautiful voices in [Brazilian] music.” Some twenty years prior, a similar special aired on another of Brazil ’s major news programs, SBT Reporter, in which Costa was likewise declared to have “one of the most beautiful voices in [Brazilian] music.”2 While such tributes to Costa’s musical legacy follow different narrative threads, most tend to arrive at similar destinations: the assertion of Costa as a central piece of Brazil ’s sonic history, both at home and abroad. They also overwhelmingly tend to focus on Costa’s later career, and on the delicate and ref ined vocal tones that became her trademark. Beginning with her 1980 album Aquarela do Brasil, Costa has shaped both her performative and vocal character around a ballad-heavy, soft and sultry persona, taking up the lead of legendary Brazilian singers such as Astrud Gilberto and Nara Leão. Lost in these portrayals of Costa as a musical ambassador are the often contradictory, dissonant, and ambiguous performances that marked her early career. In the f irst decade of her career, Costa experimented with myriad musical and performative styles, borrowing from an assortment of