joe arroyo

NPR Music reports: The world of Latin music has lost one of its greats. At age 55, Colombian salsa singer Joe Arroyo died this morning at a hospital in Barranquilla, Colombia. He died of multiple organ failure.

On the day of his death, it was announced that he was to be among the recipients of the Latin Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos mourned Arroyo's death, calling it on his Twitter account "a great loss for music and for Colombia."

"El Joe" as he was known, was born in 1955 in the Caribbean city of Cartagena. He fell in love with salsa at the young age of 15 and signed on to legendary record label Discos Fuentes in 1971. He played with celebrated bands like The Latin Brothers and Fruko Y Sus Tesos.

His brilliant music combined the styles of his native Cartagena (calypso, merengue, salsa, soca) and showcased the incredible variety of African styles that exist in Colombian music, such as champeta and porro.

Two other things come to mind when remembering Joe Arroyo: His love for the city of Barranquilla, for which he wrote an ode in his famous "En Barranquilla Me Quedo". And his dedication to telling the stories of Afro-Latinos, famously in the song "Rebelión," in which he tells the story of an African couple brought by Spanish slave traders to Latin America.

--> Personally speaking, Joe Arroyo's music was very much the soundtrack of my childhood. I learned to dance salsa to "Rebelión" and it remains one of my favorite salsa songs of all time (video below). Thank you, Mr. Arroyo, for giving the world some of the finest music our culture has ever produced.