On carnival mornings in Salvador, when the trio elétrico, the towering sound truck that carries bands through the streets, rounded the avenue and the crowd was still shaking off the night before, the opening chords of "Milla" were enough to make thousands of voices answer in chorus, unrehearsed and unmistakable. On top of the truck, microphone in hand, he was almost always there. The voice that led that chorus fell silent on Tuesday (13): Netinho, one of the leading singers of axé music, the carnival pop genre born in Bahia, died at 60 in a Salvador hospital after more than a year of treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system.
His team announced the death on the singer's social media accounts. According to Folha de S.Paulo, the cause was kidney failure and multiple organ failure resulting from B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Netinho revealed the diagnosis in March 2025, after being hospitalized at Hospital Aliança Star in the Bahian capital with severe leg pain, and from then on he shared the stages of his treatment with fans online, including the day he shaved his head on camera. At the singer's own request, the wake and cremation will be held privately, restricted to family and close friends, his press office told G1.
"It is with soul-cutting sadness that we announce the passing of singer Netinho. An extraordinary, talented, sensitive and innovative artist, Netinho built a trajectory marked by joy, by music and by an unmistakable charisma," reads the statement posted on his official Instagram account.
From the countryside to the top of the sound truck
Netinho was born in Santo Antônio de Jesus, in Bahia's sugar-cane heartland known as the Recôncavo, on July 12, 1966, and moved with his family to Salvador at age 10. At 14 he received his first guitar from his mother; at 16 he enrolled in civil engineering at the Catholic University of Salvador, balancing his studies with small school gigs and, later, bar performances of MPB and bossa nova. The turning point came in 1988, when he debuted as lead singer of Banda Beijo at Salvador's carnival and broke through nationwide with "Beijo na Boca". "Estrela Primeira", "Barracos" and "A Vida é Festa" followed.
As a solo artist from 1993 on, he recorded his biggest hit in 1996: "Milla", which became one of the defining songs of axé and turned him into a national idol, with shows in countries such as Italy and Chile. As a businessman, he opened a recording and mixing studio in Rio de Janeiro that hosted Maria Bethânia, Milton Nascimento, Gilberto Gil, Laura Pausini and Lenny Kravitz, and he founded a label devoted to launching new Bahian artists.
His story also had hard chapters. In 2013, three strokes caused, among other problems, the temporary loss of his voice, his working instrument, and kept him away from Salvador's carnival for four years. In 2010 he publicly came out as bisexual, a subject he preferred not to dwell on: "I think it's tacky to keep talking about it. It doesn't make much sense," he told the TV program Fantástico in 2012. In the 2022 elections he ran for federal deputy for the PL party, won about 31,000 votes and was not elected; an avowed supporter of Jair Bolsonaro, he took part in a rally for the then president in 2021, a stance that drew criticism.
Between 1997 and 2003, Netinho was married to journalist Mariana Trindade, with whom he had a daughter, Bruna. The farewell, by his own decision, will happen far from the crowds he entertained all his life, in a discreet ceremony in Salvador. But carnival will come again, the sound trucks will round the avenue once more, and when the opening chords of "Milla" ring out from some speaker stack, the chorus he taught to sing will answer on its own, as it always did.