Colombian Music Legend Totó la Momposina Dies at 85

Totó la Momposina, one of Colombia's most celebrated musicians, has died aged 85. Her children announced her death from a heart attack on Instagram, saying she "carried the culture and memory of the Colombian people to the far corners of the world." Born Sonia Bazanta Vides in 1940 in the northern Colombian town of Talaigua Nuevo, she adopted the stage name Totó la Momposina, taking her childhood nickname and a reference to the Mompós region where she was raised. By the late 1960s, she was performing with her own band, Totó La Momposina y Sus Tambores, and her growing reputation in Colombia led to an invitation to perform at New York's Radio City Music Hall in 1974.

However, her career was interrupted in 1979 when she discovered she had been blacklisted in Colombia for her leftwing political leanings. She became a refugee and moved to France, where she sang in streets, restaurants, and markets to make a living. She later joined the cultural delegation accompanying Gabriel García Márquez when he received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982. Her international breakthrough came through a partnership with Peter Gabriel's Real World Records, beginning with the 1993 album La Candela Viva. Her music blended African and Indigenous traditions from the Colombian Caribbean, incorporating styles such as cumbia, chandé, and mapalé.

Sources: theguardian.com / bbc.com