Colombian music legend Totó la Momposina dies at 85

Totó la Momposina, one of the most celebrated musicians in Colombian history, has died at age 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 brought Colombian folk music genres such as cumbia and porro to broader international awareness. Her popularity has endured, with younger Latin artists sampling her songs.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro paid tribute, describing 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, into a family with multiple generations of musicians. After the family moved to Bogotá, she adopted the stage name Totó la Momposina — Totó being her childhood nickname and Momposina 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. Her reputation in Colombia grew to the point where she was invited to perform a concert residency at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in 1974.

But in 1979, she discovered she was blacklisted in Colombia for leftwing political leanings. She became a refugee, fleeing to France and joining a musical collective there. “I sang in the streets, in restaurants, on street corners, in markets, in the Métro, everywhere,” she said.

She joined the cultural delegation accompanying Gabriel García Márquez when he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. Her recording career began the following year with debut album “Cantadora.” However, it was through a partnership with Peter Gabriel’s label Real World Records that she found a broader international audience, starting with 1993’s “La Candela Viva.”

Raised near the northern Colombian coast, Totó’s music blended African and Indigenous influences with great rhythmic variety. She moved between sub-styles such as chandé, mapalé, fandango, puya, and bullerengue.

Totó had an evangelistic fervor about Colombian music and dedicated her life to spreading it. “It had to be done,” she told Songlines magazine in 2023. “People need music to identify themselves; it dignifies them.” Elsewhere she said: “While I respect the word ‘folklore,’ to me it means something that’s dead – in a museum. Traditional music, or the music from the old days, is still alive: many people are working with it and it’s always evolving.”

In later years, she spent time in the UK and returned to Colombia, though she continued touring worldwide. In 2013, she received a lifetime achievement award at the Latin Grammys, and in 2016, the French government made her a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.

The flute line from her song “Curura” became the core of the widely celebrated 2003 track “Indian Flute” by U.S. producer-rapper duo Timbaland and Magoo, and was later sampled by Major Lazer and many others. Her work was also sampled by Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Sevdaliza, and numerous other artists spanning hip-hop, dance, and beyond. She made a guest appearance with Puerto Rican group Calle 13 on their 2011 track “Latinoamérica.”