Known professionally as Tabu Ley Rochereau, Pascal-Emmanuel Sinamoyi Tabu (13 November 1940 – 30 November 2013) was a prominent African rumba singer and songwriter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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How old is Tabu Ley?
Tabu Ley Rochereau passed away on November 30, 2013, at the age of 73, in the Saint-Luc hospital in Brussels, Belgium, where he was receiving care following a stroke he had experienced in 2008.
Following a formal funeral service at the Palais du Peuple on December 9, 2013, he was laid to rest in Kinshasa’s Acropolic de la Nsele Cemetery.
He was the founder of Orchestre Afrisa International and one of Africa’s most famous singers and songwriters.
By combining elements of Congolese folk music with Cuban, Caribbean, and Latin American rumba, Tabu Ley, together with guitarist Dr Nico Kasanda, pioneered soukous (African rumba) and internationalised his music. He has been called “the Congolese figure who, with Mobutu, shaped Africa’s history in the 20th century.”
