Edith Lefel. Edith Lefel was born in Guyana and grew up in Martinique

Martinique

Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...

; she has become a popular zouk-love

Zouk-love

Zouk-love is a genre of popular French West Indian music originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe & Martinique. Zouk means "party" or "festival" in the local creole of French, although the word originally referred to, and is still used to refer to, a popular dance, based on the Polish...

 singer. Her career began to take off in 1984, when she worked with Jean-Michel Cabrimol's group Maffia. In 1987, Lefel began working with the well-established Martinican band Malavoi

Malavoi

Malavoi was a Martinican band consisting of Mano Césaire, Jean-Paul Soïme, Christian de Negri, Denis Dantin, and Marcel Rémion. They formed in 1972, naming themselves after a kind of sugarcane and a street on Gorée, a Senegalese island...

. Also a frequent background vocalist recording with the famed French Creole band Kassav' in Paris in the 1980s, Edith Lefel also gave birth to twins by the well-known French Creole artist/producer Ronald Rubinel. Her most recent album, released in 2002, includes elements of Haitian Kompa

Kompa

Compas is a musical genre derivative of the Haitian Méringue, the national music of Haiti that people have been dancing and playing since the 1800s. written as Compas Direct in French, and Kompa or konpa in Haitian Creole. Worldwide, several festivals annually feature Compas music and other aspects...

, French Caribbean beguine

Beguine (dance)

The beguine is a dance and music form, similar to a slow rumba, that was popular in the 1930s, coming from the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, where in local Creole Beke or Begue means a White person, and Beguine is the female form...

, and Polish creolized Mazurka

Mazurka

The mazurka is a Polish folk dance in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, and with accent on the third or second beat.-History:The folk origins of the mazurek are two other Polish musical forms—the slow machine...

, as well as Dominican merengue

Merengue music

Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...

. Tragically at only age 39, she died in her sleep in January, 2003. Autopsy results revealed a combination of smoking and birth control pills as the cause of her death. Edith Lefel is buried at Pere Lachaise, the famous Parisian cemetery alongside the remains of several other well-known artists.
Edith's inner beauty equalled her outer beauty.