Born Maria Tereza Gomes, Geovana (Rio de Janeiro, 1948) grew up in Morro da Rocinha.
Daughter of a Senegalese father and a mother from Minas Gerais, she was always surrounded by the oratory of the stories told by her family members and got used to traveling through suburban samba circles, gathering the best of music for her work.
She made her life in this environment and was artistically recognized by the name she bears to this day.

The Black Goddess of samba, as she is known, is godmother of the group the Vagabundagem Battalion which, by the way, we have nothing of “vagabundos”!
The group is formed by several musicians and composers of the new generation, cultural producers, poets and writers who have samba as the protagonist of life and, at 72, Geovana has a lot of energy, a lot of story to tell about her trajectory and a lot of samba in her throat and on the foot that infects every wheel she steps on.

In the 1960s, Geovana began to get directly involved with the universe of samba schools, attending the Imperatriz Leopoldinense and Salgueiro courts and, decades later, she joined the Gremio Recreativo de Artes Negras and Escola de Samba Quilombo, founded by the immortal Antônio Candeia.

In the early 1970s, at the invitation of Maria Bethânia, Geovana began to perform on Mondays at the samba circles of Teatro Opinião – a pole of political and cultural resistance in the midst of the military dictatorship. There, she met personalities such as Tereza Aragão, Aluízio Machado, Xangô da Mangueira, Martinho da Vila and Jair Rodrigues, but it was at the Samba Biennial, in 1971, that she debuted on the music scene as a singer and songwriter when she defended the song “Pisa Nesse Chão com Force". His growing involvement with samba, brought him, among other joys, the recording of the LP “Quem tem Carinho me Leva” by the BMG label, in 1975.

In this work, produced by Rildo Hora, the songs “Pisa Nesse Chão com Força”, “Tataruê”, “Nos Braços do Dia” and “Rosa do Morro” were included. The LP also had three arrangements by the pianist Luiz Eça, plus the composition “Maitá” also by her and, in 1978, Geovana broke several stigmas by being part of the cast of the documentary “Partideiros”, with a screenplay by Nei Lopes, Rubem Confete and Clóvis Scarpino, who also directs the film alongside Carlos Tourinho. The young Geovana appears alongside great supporters such as Clementina de Jesus, Aniceto do Império, Candeia, Guara, Geraldo Babão, Martinho da Vila and Wilson Moreira, and it was only in 1988 that she recorded her second album, “Canto pra Any Cantar”.

​https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geovana_
(sambista)