Leonardo

Leonardo (Emival Eterno Costa) formed one of Brazil’s top-selling sertanejo acts alongside his brother Leandro (José Luís Costa). Together they recorded as Leandro e Leonardo and moved more than twenty million albums. Just seven days after Leandro succumbed to cancer on June 23, 1998, Leonardo appeared at the Paris concert Coração Brasileiro, staged as a tribute to his sibling. The following year he issued his debut solo LP, Tempo, a project that marked his deliberate pivot from sertanejo toward romantic material. Three further releases followed, among them the concert recording Leonardo Ao Vivo (1999), whose DVD edition became Brazil’s first digital video title. The three initial solo albums together averaged roughly 1.5 million copies each, driven by widespread radio airplay across the country.