Born in Santo Amaro, Bahia, she started her career in Rio de Janeiro in 1964 with the show "Opinião" ("Opinion"), she is "The Queen of Brazilian Music".

[6] The name Maria Bethânia was chosen by her brother Caetano Veloso after the homonymous hit song written by composer Capiba and famous at the time in the voice of Nélson Gonçalves.

Nevertheless, the film's director, Álvaro Guimarães, liked her voice and invited the young musician to perform in the 1963 Nélson Rodrigues's musical Boca de Ouro.

[8] That same year, Bethânia and her sister met singers Gilberto Gil and Gal Costa; Caetano had been invited to put on an MPB show to inaugurate the Teatro Vila Velha.

[9] She began performing again with her brother, as well as Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, and Tom Zé, at the opening of the Vila Velha Theater in the next year.

[7] Around the end of the 1970s, Bethânia became more artistically conservative, moving away from the Tropicalismo music her frequent collaborators, including Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, had been playing.

[13] Its members were Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethânia and Gal Costa, four of the biggest names in the history of the Music of Brazil.

[15] In March 2011, Bethânia found herself in the midst of a controversy after receiving permission from the Ministry of Culture of Brazil to make a poetry blog budgeted for $1.3 million tax-free Reais ($783,000 USD).

[18] Blogger, journalist and filmmaker Mauricio Caleiro explained that this process, appropriated by the interests of big names and governed by the market, has suffered from great distortions over the years, favoring respected names over beginners, according to him: "(…) the imbroglio involving the baiana singer revealed the problems of the “Rouanet Law”, a tool that, shortly after being created, played a key role in the survival of certain artistic areas during the neoliberal autumn, but as the episode in question shows, it eventually lead to serious distortions in relations between economy, ideology and cultural production.

It said that "the criteria in the CNIC (National Commission on Cultural Incentives) are technical and legal, so to reject an applicant because she/he is famous, or not, would set up obvious and untenable discrimination.

"[21] Then, on March 27, Caetano Veloso, Bethânia's brother, came out to defend his sister, noting that other projects by many other artists, both known and unknown, were authorized to raise larger amounts.