Totó la Momposina, vocalist and Colombian music legend, dies aged 85

Totó la Momposina, one of the most celebrated musicians in Colombian history, has died aged 85. Her three children announced her death from a heart attack on Instagram. “Totó was a woman who, with her voice and extraordinary dedication, carried the culture and memory of the Colombian people to the far corners of the world,” they added. With a lilting voice charged with an edge of toughness, Totó took various forms of Colombian folk music, including cumbia and porro, to broader international awareness. And her popularity has been maintained, with younger generations of Latin artists sampling her songs. Among those paying tribute was Colombian president Gustavo Petro, who described her as “my dear friend and a luminary of Colombian Caribbean art and culture … may she soar high to the stars”. She was born Sonia Bazanta Vides in 1940 in the small town of Talaigua Nuevo in northern Colombia, to a family featuring multiple generations of musicians. After the family moved to Bogotá, she took on the stage name Totó la Momposina, Totó being her childhood nickname and Momposina a reference to the Mompós region where she had been raised. By the late 1960s she was performing in her own band, Totó La Momposina y Sus Tambores, and her reputation in Colombia built to the point where she was invited to perform a concert residency at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in 1974. …