Mercedes Sosa

Mercedes Sosa, known as La Negra, (born July 9, 1935 in San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina – October 4, 2009, Buenos Aires) was an Argentine singer who was and remains immensely popular throughout Latin America and internationally. With her roots in Argentine folk music, in 1950, at age fifteen, she won a singing competition organized by a local radio station, and in the 1960s Sosa became one of the preeminent exponents of 'nueva canción' and started touring internationally. She also gave voice to many songs written by Brazilians and Cubans. She was best known as the 'voice of the voiceless ones'. At a concert in La Plata in 1979 she was arrested on stage by the military junta, along with the attending crowd. Banned in her own country, she moved to Paris and then to Madrid until her return to Argentina in 1982. Sosa also was a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Latin America and the Caribbean.