\u00a0<\/p>\n
The cause was heart failure, his North American manager, Alex Boicel<\/a>, said.<\/p>\n Papa Wemba\u2019s death occasioned public mourning throughout Africa. Baudouin Banza Mukalay, culture minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo<\/a>, called it a \u201cgreat loss for the country and all of Africa,\u201d praising him as \u201ca role model for Congolese youth.\u201d<\/p>\n One of Africa\u2019s foremost representatives in world music, Papa Wemba was widely admired for his sweet, supple, haunting tenor, with which he sang in his native Lingala and in French.<\/p>\n His music \u2014 a style originally called Congolese rumba, and in later years soukous, a word derived from the French secouer, \u201cto shake\u201d \u2014 melded traditional African and Caribbean rhythms with rock and soul.<\/p>\n Papa Wemba, who had homes in Paris and Kinshasa, his homeland\u2019s capital, appeared on stages throughout the world with his band Viva la Musica.<\/p>\n In New York, he was heard at S.O.B.\u2019s in 1989 in a performance that Jon Pareles, writing in The New York Times<\/a>, called \u201clilting and kinetic, a marvelous lattice of percussion and melody.\u201d<\/p>\n