Baca becomes the Andean nation’s first black minister of government since independence from Spain in 1821.

Baca is the best-known voice of the rich musical and dance tradition of Afro-Peruvians, descendants of slaves brought in colonial times. The 67-year-old Baca won a Latin Grammy in 2002 for the album Lamento Negro, which she’d recorded nearly two decades earlier in Cuba.

President-elect Ollanta Humala also named his education minister on Monday, the sociologist Patricia Salas.

They were the last announced Cabinet appointments.

Humala takes office on Thursday.