Sonia Bazanta Vides (born 1 August 1940), also known as Totó la Momposina, is a Colombian singer of Afro-Colombian and Indigenous descent. She reached international attention with the release of her 1993 album La Candela Viva on Peter Gabriel's Real World Records label.
Hailing from Talaigua, a tiny village on the banks of the mighty Magdalena River, Totó was born into a family of musicians spanning five generations. The household lived with the musical traditions of ‘la costa’ and she learned to sing and dance as a child. As a teenager, she traveled from village to village researching their various rhythms and dances and studying the art of the cantadora – the gifted women at the heart of rural cultural life.
She has toured internationally since the 1970s. In the early 1990s her global fame was cemented by a WOMAD tour across three continents and the release of La Candela Viva, the first of many acclaimed albums. In 2006 she was presented with the WOMEX Lifetime Achievement Award for her extraordinary contribution to world music. A dynamic 71 year old, Totó continues to work tirelessly to promote the music of her homeland, driven by passion and the simple joy of performance.
“A cantadora belongs to the people!” Totó exclaims. “She is a woman who belongs to the space around her and who is true to her roots...but she is born with the gift of singing, the gift of summoning people.” Through the power of her voice and creative spontaneity, Totó La Momposina has used this gift to summon people from all over the world, to hear the evocative village music of her roots, and celebrate a rich traditional legacy with one of the true giants of Latin American music.
