Popular Benga songbird Lilian Auma, better known by her stage name Princess Jully, has died. The death of the “Dunia Mbaya” hitmaker was confirmed Saturday by her son Walter Oguda.

The “Queen of Benga” breathed her last at Migori County Referral Hospital, where she was admitted a fortnight earlier. It was reported that the 51-year-old artiste had suffered multiple organ failure.

She was placed in the High Dependency Unit and her family took to social media to ask her loyal fans for prayers. She had developed kidney failure before her heart began to fail. She succumbed at 4 pm on Saturday.

The family lost a matriarch who ensured the best for her children, especially in their pursuit of education though she herself was not highly educated, said Oguda, who happens to be the director of Migori Governor Ochillo Ayacko’s communications team.

“She was a fighter and a woman of gift,” he said.

Princess Jully was the widow of the late founder of the Jollys Band, Jully Okumu or Prince Jully, as he was known by his fans before he died in 1997. 

The songstress, variously known as Alili Nya Jo Gina or Alili Panadol, had briefly stopped making music in 2010, but the music bug hit her again and she returned to performing for her fans across Kenya and notably in Nairobi, where she formed her own band.

Among those who sent their condolences were Youth Affairs, Creative Economy and Sports Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen. “The demise of Princess Jully is not only a great loss to the music fraternity but a painful loss to Kenya,” Murkomen wrote on Facebook.