"Charlotte Mbango died this [Tuesday] morning. She suffered from acute diabetes over the past three weeks," her older brother Njoh Mboulè declared in a statement to AFP, without giving further details. For the past few days she had been hospitalised at the Kremlin-Bicêtre CHU clinic in Val de Marne, near Paris, having been transported from Dublin in Ireland, where she had been living for several years. She leaves a daughter, Chris Audrey, as well as a  granddaughter.

Charlotte Mbango sang in a choir from the age of 9, participating in many school concerts. Later, she started singing with negro spiritual groups. After moving to Paris, she got work on the Parisian music scene thanks to her cousin Joe Mboulé, accompanying internationally renowned artists such as Manu Dibango.

Having gained a masters in marketing, Charlotte Mbango launched her solo career, debuting in 1987 with her album Nostalgie. It featured the song Dikom lam la moto which gave her her first success. She popularized Makossa, an urban music style from Cameroon, leaving her mark on the genre with such songs as the Guy Lobé-penned Konkai makossa, a major hit which won her a gold album in 1988, presented to her by the designer Paco Rabane. Charlotte Mbango was very religious, and also recorded hymns in her native Duala tongue. She recorded around a dozen albums in all and received an honorary Tamani during the Golden Tamani Awards held in Bamako, Mali, in 2003.