The house lights were dimmed in one of Rio’s top music venues and, as the star of the show prepared to take the stage, thousands of enraptured fans cried out their idol’s name in the darkness: “Liniker! Liniker! Liniker! Liniker!”

It was not, however, the England striker turned Match of the Day host Gary Lineker the sellout crowd was here to see. It was Lineker’s Brazilian namesake: a Grammy-winning pop sensation whose mesmerising performances and soul-stirring songs have captured the hearts and minds of millions.

“I’ve loved my name ever since I was a kid … [it] has such a wonderful sound,” the 29-year-old told the Guardian, recalling how it was given at the suggestion of a footballing-loving uncle.

“People used to really struggle to pronounce it. [They would say]: ‘Leeniker … Linker or Lynicker … [or] Linkin Park,” joked the velvet-voiced singer-songwriter. “Lately, what they’ve most called me is ‘LinkedIn’: ‘Oh, You’re that singer LinkedIn, aren’t you?’”

Brazil’s Liniker – full name Liniker de Barros Ferreira Campos– was born in Araraquara, a small city north of São Paulo, in 1995, a year after the English goalscorer retired.

As well as a chart-topping musician revered for a huge vocal range, Liniker – who is black, transgender and has working-class roots – is also a potent symbol of diversity and tolerance in a country that only recently emerged from a bleak spell under Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right populist notorious for his racist comments and hostility to minorities.

Liniker, who uses female pronouns, grew up immersed in black culture and music under the tutelage of a samba-dancing mother who played in a group called Feminine Touch. Music, not football, was her passion.

“I was born into such a musical family. I think kids who grow up in musical families – where music is played every day – end up developing their ear … I think I only became … an artist because of the things I listened to,” Liniker recalled as she geared up for the second of three sold-out shows in Rio earlier this month.

Liniker wrote her first songs in her mid-teens, drawing inspiration from poem-filled notebooks and love letters she never dared post. “From this music started to be born,” said the artist who went on to study at a celebrated drama school in Santo André.

Liniker’s acting dreams were put on ice in 2015 when her first single, Zero, became an overnight hit, racking up millions of views in a few days. Since then she has enjoyed a meteoric rise to stardom, performing alongside Brazilian greats including Milton Nascimento, Gilberto Gil and the late Elza Soares.

During the final years of her life, Soares – who rose from poverty to become one of Brazil’s greatest voices – took Liniker under her wing. “Elza was one of the first who wanted to get to know me, to do things with me, to show interest in me,” said Liniker, who last year took Soares’s place as an “immortal” in the Brazilian academy of culture.

​True to her family’s eclectic listening tastes, Liniker’s music is a hypnotising fusion of styles – soul, rock, R&B, samba, gospel, disco and Brazilian funk – capable of getting her audiences dancing as well as reducing them to tears.

Outside the brutalist concert hall where Liniker was about to perform, fans hailed her as an heir to music legends such as Soares. “She represents the Brazilian music of today,” said Nelson Cavalcante, 28, who had arrived seven hours before doors opened to guarantee his spot at the front.

Joshua Lucca, a 19-year-old who was also at the front of the queue, said: “I’m a trans man and I’m black and so Liniker’s art really speaks to me because I’m not used to seeing people like this in the Brazilian media. The feeling it gives me is one of acceptance, you know?

“This is life. People live. People exist. They need space to be who they are … That’s why I’m here.”

Vinícius de Assis, a 25-year-old fan, said: “Liniker is a symbol of strength: to come from where she came from and to get where she got. Damn, the first black trans [artist] to win a Grammy. This is really remarkable … She’s synonymous with the idea that you can achieve whatever you want. All you have to do is dream.”

Liniker said she was committed to using her fame to defend Brazil’s black and LGBTQIA+ communities – “Of course it’s really important as an artist to use the spotlight on you and the microphone in your hand to take a stance on lots of things,” she said – but expressed discomfort at having for years been pigeonholed by the media as “an LGBT artist” whose music seemed secondary to her gender identity.

“In order to engage with my music, they first had to engage with my gender,” she said. “All of the interviews started: ‘Black, turban-wearing, dark lipstick, skirt’: find out who Liniker is!’”

“It was really tedious and tiresome. There was even a moment … we stopped doing interviews … I didn’t want for everything to be about my gender and for my music to be pushed into the background … as if in order to champion my music, I first had to say what it was like to be a travesti and a black woman.”

Liniker celebrated how, with her new album, Caju, receiving rave reviews and earning her one of Brazil’s top music awards, her songwriting skills had taken centre stage.

“For the first time I feel my work in the foreground – so we can talk about my music without having to navigate the question of gender to talk about my main function … which is my profession,” she said, as she sat in a dressing room adorned with photos of the music stars who performed there in years gone by.

Next year, Liniker will take the same show to London’s Electric Ballroom, giving the Brazilian artist’s English namesake the chance to join her fast-growing international fanbase.

“Is he a progressive?” Liniker asked of the footballer she owes her name to.

On learning that the answer was yes, the singer replied: “Well, you can take charge of inviting him [to my show] then – Liniker and Lineker!”