TALAIGUA NUEVO — Colombian folk singer Totó la Momposina has died at the age of 85. Her three children announced her death from a heart attack on Instagram.

Born Sonia Bazanta Vides in 1940 in Talaigua Nuevo in northern Colombia, she took the stage name Totó la Momposina, with Totó as her childhood nickname and Momposina referring to the Mompós region where she was raised. She brought Colombian folk music forms, including cumbia and porro, to international audiences, blending African and Indigenous musical traditions across sub-styles such as chandé, mapalé, fandango, puya and bullerengue.

By the late 1960s she was performing in her own band, Totó La Momposina y Sus Tambores. In 1974 she performed a concert residency at Radio City Music Hall in New York. In 1979 she discovered she was blacklisted in Colombia for her leftwing political leanings, and fled to France, where she joined a musical collective. Describing her time in France, she said: "I sang in the streets, in restaurants, on street corners, in markets, in the Métro, everywhere."

She was part of 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 the debut album Cantadora. She later partnered with Real World Records and released the album La Candela Viva in 1993.

She said of her work preserving Colombian musical traditions: "It had to be done. People need music to identify themselves; it dignifies them."

Her music reached audiences through samples used by other artists. The track "Indian Flute" by Timbaland and Magoo, released in 2003, sampled the flute line from her song "Curura." Jay-Z, 50 Cent, and Sevdaliza also sampled her music in their tracks. She made a guest appearance on the 2011 track "Latinoamérica" by Calle 13.

In 2013 she was awarded a lifetime achievement award at the Latin Grammy Awards. In 2016 she was made Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. In later years she spent time in the U.K. and returned to Colombia.