Sara Tavares

Tavares in 2009, photo by Prphotos.com

Birth Name: Sara Alexandra Lima Tavares

Date of Birth: 1 February, 1978

Place of Birth: Lisbon, Portugal

Date of Death: 19 November, 2023

Place of Death: Lisbon, Portugal

Ethnicity: Cape Verdean

Sara Tavares was a Portuguese singer, composer, guitarist, and percussionist. She worked in African, Portuguese, and North American-style world music; and in Portuguese and Portuguese-based creole languages, as well as a mix of the two, and English. She won the 1993/1994 final of the Endemol song contest Chuva de Estrelas, and the Portuguese Television Song Contest final in 1994. Songs she performed include “Chamar a Música,” “One Love,” and the European-Portuguese version of “God Help the Outcasts” from the film The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996).

She was born in Lisbon, Portugal, to Cape Verdean parents. Her mother is from the Santo Antão Island. Her father left Portugal for the U.S., and her mother moved to Lagos, in the South of Portugal, when Sara was a baby. Sara was raised by a white Portuguese woman, whom she called “Grandma Eugénia.”

Sources: Interviews in Portuguese – https://www.youtube.com
http://www.sabado.pt