Cameroonian singer Wes, who scored a world hit in 1997 with the song Alane, is deceased. He died at the age of 57 in a hospital in Paris after contracting an infection during an operation there.
Wes Madiko, as his full name is, made music from an early age. Encouraged by the success with Western tourists during performances, he left for Europe in the late 1980s to earn money with music.
In 1996 his debut album Welengo was released, a record with world music that also contains ‘Alane’:
Alane was in the Dutch Top 40 for 27 weeks, of which eight weeks at number 1. 175,000 singles were sold in the Netherlands. Worldwide there were 10 million. Last year a remix that he had made with DJ Robin Schulz was released.