Ser­gio Mendes, the Gram­my-win­ning Brazil­ian mu­si­cian whose hit “Mas Que Na­da” made him a glob­al leg­end, has died af­ter months bat­tling the ef­fects of long COVID. He was 83.

The death Thurs­day of the Brazil­ian pi­anist, song­writer and arranger was con­firmed in a state­ment by his fam­i­ly.

“His wife and mu­si­cal part­ner for the past 54 years, Grac­in­ha Lep­o­race Mendes, was by his side, as were his lov­ing chil­dren,” the state­ment Fri­day said. “Mendes last per­formed in No­vem­ber 2023 to sold out and wild­ly en­thu­si­as­tic hous­es in Paris, Lon­don and Barcelona.”

His com­po­si­tion “Mas Que Na­da” was one of the songs that helped pop­u­lar­ize the Brazil­ian mu­sic genre bossa no­va world­wide in the 1960s.

In 2006, a mod­ern ver­sion of the song topped U.S. charts, as per­formed by Black Eyed Peas. It was in­clud­ed in his al­bum “Time­less”, pro­duced by will.i.am and fea­tur­ing Ste­vie Won­der, Justin Tim­ber­lake and the Black Eyed Peas, among oth­ers.

“Ser­gio Mendes was my broth­er from an­oth­er coun­try,” trum­pet play­er Herb Alpert wrote on Face­book, along with a pho­to from decades ago, sit­ting next to Mendes at the pi­ano. “He was a true friend and ex­treme­ly gift­ed mu­si­cian who brought Brazil­ian mu­sic in all its it­er­a­tions to the en­tire world with el­e­gance.”

Mendes al­so com­posed the sound­track for the film “Pelé”, fea­tur­ing sax­o­phon­ist Ger­ry Mul­li­gan, and even pro­duced an al­bum record­ed by the Brazil­ian leg­endary soc­cer play­er.

Mendes won the 1992 Gram­my Award for Best World Mu­sic Al­bum for “Brasileiro” and two Latin Gram­my Awards. He al­so re­ceived an Os­car nom­i­na­tion in 2012 for Best Orig­i­nal Song for “Re­al in Rio”, from the an­i­mat­ed film “Rio”.

Mendes’ fam­i­ly said they will pro­vide de­tails re­gard­ing fu­ner­al and memo­r­i­al ser­vices at a lat­er date. —RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)

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Sto­ry by DAVID BILLER and GABRIELA SÁ PES­SOA | As­so­ci­at­ed Press