DJ Arafat, a singer from Ivory Coast with a huge following in francophone Africa, has died after a road accident in Abidjan.
“Death of artist DJ Arafat … today at 8am as a result of a road accident overnight,”
According to messages and pictures circulating on social media, he had been driving a motorbike and smashed into a car.
Critically injured, the singer, 33, was taken to an Abidjan hospital, where he later died.
“We are all in shock,” Ickx Fontaine, an Ivorian producer and specialist in hip-hop told the AFP news agency.
“He was a real singer and a drummer … he gave a new breath of life to coupe-decale.”
Later on Monday, around 1,000 fans gathered in front of the hospital in Abidjan’s Cocody suburb where the singer died, weeping and chanting, “Arafat cannot die”.