10 Facts About Nelson Sargento

Nelson Sargento gained notability as a singer at the famed Zicartola lounge and, shortly thereafter, as a member of the ensembles A Voz do Morro and Os Cinco Crioulos in the 1960s.

Nelson Sargento was born on 25 July 1924, to Rosa Maria da Conceicao, a maid and cook, and Olimpio Jose de Mattos, a cook.

Nelson Sargento's mother left her domestic worker job to live in the Salgueiro favela, in a rented shack.

Three years later, Nelson Sargento was elected president of Mangueira's composers' wing,[2] a position that allowed him more contact with the school's veteran sambistas, especially Cartola, of whom he would become a disciple occasionally completing some of his compositions.

Between 1964 and 1965, at Zicartola, Cartola and Dona Zica's famed samba lounge, Nelson Sargento began to perform as a singer and composer, establishing himself as a performer in Rio's urban samba scene.

Alongside these and other sambistas, Nelson Sargento joined some ensembles that defined samba of the era, such as A Voz do Morro and Os Cinco Crioulos.

Besides his recognition as a sambista, Nelson Sargento was a visual artist and poet.

Nelson Sargento had 14 works exhibited at Espaco Favela in the 2019 edition of the Rock in Rio festival.

Nelson Sargento was awarded the Ordem do Merito Cultural in 2016.

In May 2021, the sambista was admitted to the National Cancer Institute - a facility he had attended since 2005 when he received treatment for prostate cancer[3] - with dehydration and rapid weight loss, in addition to testing positive for COVID-19, despite Nelson Sargento having taken both doses of the CoronaVac vaccine between January and February of the same year.