The revered Argentinean matriarch of protest music, Mercedes Sosa, died in Buenos Aires on October 4. She was 74.
Three days of national mourning were declared when Sosa succumbed to the kidney disease that had troubled her for years.
Thousands of Argentineans came from all over the country — including the province of Tucuman where Sosa was born — to pay their last respects to the "voice of the voiceless ones".
Throughout her long career as a Nueva Cancionera, Sosa challenged oppression and championed the poor, the dispossessed and the marginalised of her country.
Her many live versions of Leon Gieco's "Solo le Pido a Dios" encapsulate Sosa's singular power as a vocal performer, channelling the ancestral yearnings of a people as they struggle for a life of dignity and peace.
Along with artists such as Violeta Parra and Victor Jara of Chile and Silvio Rodriguez of Cuba (who on September 20 sang for a million people at the Peace without Borders concert in Havana), Sosa embodied the aims and principles of Nueva Cancion ("New Song" movement), which emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a folk-protest song movement.
Spreading from Chile and Argentina to the rest of Latin America, Nueva Cancion (also known as Nueva Trova) became the soundtrack of the turbulent 1960s and '70s.
Combining indigenous/rural rhythms with poetic, politicised lyrics, it was — and is — an urgent and compelling cry of freedom, capturing the imagination of millions worldwide.
"You can't have a revolution without songs", the socialist President of Chile, Salvador Allende, proclaimed in 1970. The US-backed dictator who ousted Allende in 1973, Augusto Pinochet, also understood the power of Nueva Cancion. Victor Jara was murdered on his orders within days of the brutal takeover.
It was subsequently forbidden in Pinochet's police state to play folk music or own any of the instruments associated with it.
In Sosa's Argentina, the military took power in 1976, initiating an infamous "dirty war" against leftists, workers, students and provincial indigenous communities. Tens of thousands were imprisoned, tortured and murdered.
As in Pinochet's Chile, the junta clamped down hard on the music of their enemies. At first, Sosa was too high-profile to touch, but her uncompromising opposition to the barbaric regime eventually prompted a draconian response.
At a concert in La Plata in 1979, Sosa was searched and arrested on stage, along with hundreds of audience members.
An international outcry embarrassed the generals into releasing Sosa, who was forced into exile. She returned to Argentina after the Malvinas War in 1982, giving a spectacular series of concerts and helping to galvanise popular opposition to the regime, which collapsed in 1983.
Sosa remained based in Argentina for the rest of her life, releasing dozens of albums and performing worldwide.
As a cultural icon, she remained deeply committed to the cause of social justice, drawing attention in the 1990s to the pervasive corruption of the Menem administration and the disastrous neoliberal follies that followed the economic collapse of 1999.
She also gave generously of her time and energies to dozens of up-and-coming singers, nurturing their talent whenever possible. Having been one of the founding members of the Nueva Cancion movement, Sosa passed away content in the knowledge that it is still a vital and electrifying genre of Latin American popular music.
The pity is, there's still so much injustice to sing about.