Totó la Momposina, Colombian singer and legend, has died at the age of 85 | Country music

Totó la Momposina, one of the most famous singers in Colombian history, has died at the age of 85.

His three children announced his death from a heart attack on Instagram. “Totó was a woman who, with her voice and her dedication, took the culture and memory of the Colombian people to the farthest corners of the world,” he added.

Possessing a bold voice, Totó has taken various forms of Colombian folk music, including cumbia and porro, to international acclaim. And his popularity has been maintained, with younger generations of Latin artists imitating his music.

One of those who paid tribute was Colombian president Gustavo Petro, who called him “my dear friend and master of the arts and culture of the Colombian Caribbean…

She was born Sonia Bazanta Vides in 1940 in the small town of Talaigua Nuevo in the north of Colombia, to a family with musicians of several nationalities. When the family moved to Bogotá, he took the stage name Totó la Momposina, Totó being his maiden name and Momposina referring to the Mompós area where he grew up.

By the end of the 1960s he was singing in his own band, Totó La Momposina y Sus Tambores, and his reputation in Colombia grew until he was invited to perform at a concert at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in 1974.

But in 1979 he found out that he had been elected in Colombia for quitting politics, and he ran away, fleeing to France and joining a band there. “I used to sing in the streets, in restaurants, on street corners, in markets, in the Metro, everywhere,” he said.

He joined the social circle accompanying Gabriel García Márquez when he received the Nobel prize for literature in 1982, and his recording career began the following year with the debut album Cantadora. But it was through a partnership with Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records label that he gained international attention, starting with 1993’s La Candela Viva.

As he grew up near the north coast of Colombia, Totó’s music had a lot of cultural roots from African and Indian sources and a lot of diversity: he jumped between different styles such as chandé, mapalé, fandango, puya and bullerengue.

Totó was interested in spreading the word about Colombian music and dedicated his life to spreading it widely. “It had to happen,” he told Songlines magazine in 2023. “People need music to identify themselves; it gives them respect.” Elsewhere he said: “Although I respect the word ‘theory,’ to me it means a dead thing – in a museum of museums.”

In the following years he lived in the UK and returned to Colombia, although he continued to visit the country. In 2013 he received a lifetime achievement award at the Latin Grammys, and in 2016 he was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.

The flute of his song pull over it was at the heart of 2003’s misnamed but hugely popular song Indian flute is a US duo who recorded songs for rappers Timbaland and Magoo, and were later replaced by Major Lazer and many others. He has also covered songs by Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Sevdaliza and many other artists in hip-hop, dance and beyond, and even appeared with the popular Puerto Rican group Calle 13 on their 2011 track Latinoamérica.