His maternal grandfather, Luís Cipriano Gomes, a famous cook, worked in Macaé, until he was recruited and sent to Rio de Janeiro to serve the President Nilo Peçanha at the Catete Palace.

Soon, another resident of Mangueira, Carlos Cachaça, six years older than Cartola, would become, besides a lifelong friend, his most constant partner in dozens of sambas.

He led a life of vagrancy for some time, drinking and dating, frequenting prostitution houses and contracting venereal diseases, roaming the nights and sleeping in suburban trains.

Cartola invited people such as Nélson Cavaquinho, Pixinguinha, Nara Leão, Paulinho da Viola, and Zé Keti to sing the "low-value" music, as sambistas ironically referred to their work.

Cartola's commercial success started in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he became quite popular and a lot of samba classics were released, such as "O Sol Nascerá", "O Mundo é Um Moinho", "As Rosas não Falam", "Corra e Olhe o Céu", and "Quem me vê Sorrindo", with support from singers Elizeth Cardoso, Clara Nunes, Paulinho da Viola and especially Beth Carvalho.

The 2007 documentary film "Música Para os Olhos", directed by Lírio Ferreira and Hilton Lacerda, is a profile of the life of Cartola.

[6] Cartola and Zica appeared briefly in the 1959 film Black Orpheus as a couple at the city hall when the main characters register to get married.

His poetry binds in an effective manner elegance and emotion, while keeping a relatively low level of complexity, which made his work accessible to larger layers of the population.

Some of his modulating tunes are "Quem me vê Sorrindo" and "Sim" (I -> V), "Aconteceu" and "Amor Proibido" (I -> bVI), "Inverno do Meu Tempo" (I -> bIII) and "A Cor da Esperança" (I -> bII).