Elza Soares, one of the greatest Brazilian singers of all time, has died at her beachside home in Rio after a legendary, genre-straddling six-decade career which made her a national treasure and a global star.

Just as Elza Soares had wished, she sung until the end,” her family and team announced in a statement on Thursday afternoon.

There was an immediate outpouring of tributes to the 91-year-old samba singer, who died of natural causes and had been preparing to release a new album and perform a series of shows.

Along the coast in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, the black activist and writer Preto Zezé said the heavens had opened, “as if God was weeping over Elza’s departure”.

Nevertheless, she rose to become one of Brazil’s most successful and beloved artists, recording more than 30 albums after launching her singing career in the late 1950s at the height of the bossa nova movement.

The guitarist Zé Paulo Becker, who recorded and toured with the late singer, said: “Playing with her was incredible … The power she had up on stage was just amazing.”.

On Thursday Brazil’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said the country had lost not only one of its most potent voices “but also a great woman, who always defended democracy and good causes”