Veteran world-music star Papa Wendo, considered the father of the Congolese rumba, has died aged 82, an NGO announced.
The musician ”died Monday [July 28] at 5pm following a long illness”, said Shaka Kongo, head of Artists in Danger.
Wendo was admitted to intensive care at a Kishasa clinic on Monday suffering organ failure.
”A baobab of music is dead,” headlined the Le Phare daily on Tuesday as the Democratic Republic of Congo’s newspapers led tributes to the singer-songwriter.
Born Antoine Wendo Kolosoy, Papa Wendo was arguably the DRC’s most popular musician.
He travelled up and down the Congo River as a river-boat mechanic and part-time musician before making his first record in 1948.
He achieved notoriety with his international hit Marie-Louise to which the Congolese in the 1950s attributed the magic virtue of being able to wake the dead. The singer fell foul of the Roman Catholic Church, which considered the tune to have Satanic properties.
A documentary about Wendo, On the Rumba River, was released only last month by French filmmaker Jacques Sarasin. — Sapa-AFP