Leandro e Leonardo

The brothers were raised in a poor family in Brazil, and from a young age worked with their parents on tomato farms and did odd jobs such as shining shoes.

After moving to Brasília, where they lived with their uncle Zé, who arranged work for Luiz as a salesman at a clothing store and for Emival at a pharmacy, while also booking gigs for them.

When they began performing regularly as a duo it was as Leandro & Leonardo, the stage names being those also given to the twin boys recently born to the pharmacist Emival was working for.

After originally seeking treatment for back pain, Leandro was diagnosed with an Askin's tumor, a locally aggressive cancer occurring mostly in adolescents, on April 19, 1998 that had formed on the right side of his chest wall and already grown to the size of an orange.

[3] At the time of his death the cancer was reported to be congenital,[4] but ongoing research instead points to a carcinogenic pesticide he was exposed to while working at a tomato farm in his youth, later aggravated by heavy tobacco smoking, as the most likely cause.