Mercedes Sosa, 74, voice of oppressed

WASHINGTON - Mercedes Sosa, an Argentine singer who emerged as a electrifying voice of conscience throughout Latin America for songs that championed social justice in the face of government repression, died yesterday at a medical clinic in Buenos Aires.

She was 74 and had liver, kidney and heart ailments.

With a rich contralto voice, Miss Sosa was foremost a compelling singer whose career spanned five decades.

Folk singer Joan Baez said she was so moved by Miss Sosa's "tremendous charisma" that she once dropped to her knees and kissed the singer's feet.

Miss Sosa's towering artistry, which led to several Latin Grammy Awards, belied her physical dimensions. Short, round, dark-skinned and often dressed in peasant clothing, she was affectionately nicknamed "La Negra" (the Black One) as an homage to her indigenous ancestry.

While not defining herself as a political activist, Miss Sosa asserted herself in the nueva cancion, or new song, musical movement of the 1960s and 1970s that blended traditional folk rhythms with politically charged lyrics about the poor and disenfranchised.

Here are the lyrics of We're Still Singing, which she sang accompanied by the large Andean drum called the bombo: "I was killed a thousand times. I disappeared a thousand times, and here I am, risen from the dead. . . . Here I am, out of the ruins the dictatorship left behind. We're still singing."

Miss Sosa came under official harassment and intimidation by the right-wing, nationalist junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. The government was responsible for the deaths and disappearances of 30,000 real and perceived leftists, and Miss Sosa transformed her sold-out concerts into rallies against the abuses of power.

Her songs were banned from Argentine radio and television.

At one performance in the university city of La Plata, many in attendance were arrested by security forces and Miss Sosa was publicly humiliated by an officer who walked onstage and conducted a body search.

The military governor of Buenos Aires prohibited her from further performances. Unable to earn a living or speak out as an opponent of the regime, she moved in exile to Europe in 1979 and lived for three years in France and Spain.

She recalled this as a dark period for her artistically, and at times her voice failed. "It wasn't my throat, or anything physical. When you are in exile, you take your suitcase, but there are things that don't fit. There are things in your mind, like colors and smells and childhood attitudes, and there is also the pain and the death you saw. You shouldn't deny those things, because to do so can make you ill," she told the New York Times.

She returned to Argentina shortly before the dictatorship crumbled, and she found that her popularity had risen to a dramatic new peak.