Singer-songwriter Pau Riba dies at 73 due to pancreatic cancer

The singer-songwriter Pau Riba, considered a reference in alternative culture, has died at the age of 73, after announcing last December that suffered from pancreatic cancer and that the tumor could not be removed.

The Ministry of Culture of the Generalitat has ‘deeply’ mourned the death by Pau Riba, who considered a “huge loss”and has shown his condolences to the family and friends of the artist.

Transgressor and iconoclast, Pau Riba was born in Palma de Mallorca in 1948 and spent most of his career in Catalonia. After starting his career in the 1960s, Riba became one of the most recognized voices of music in Catalanwith about thirty discs, although he also published a fortnight of books, among them some collections of poems. His album ‘Dioptria’, released in 1970, was considered the best Catalan album of the 20th century by the music magazine ‘Enderrock’.

Riba had five children and lived in Tiana, in the Maresme region of Barcelona. The singer-songwriter explained on December 8 that after six months of intense discomfort and after an erroneous diagnosis of pain of psychosomatic origin by his family doctor, in October was finally hospitalized with cancer of pancreas, although the tumor could not be removed.

The artist started undergoing chemotherapy sessions and thanks to the help of many friends, as he said then, managed to start a hyperthermia treatment “and some shots of vitamin C in high doses” at the Institut Khuab in Barcelona that had them “very hopeful”.

“What was coolest to me was that they healed me with sound frequencies, but now it’s not possible either,” said the singer, who commented that, no matter how much he ate and followed “scrupulous dietary guidelines”, he lost a couple of kilos every week. “Even so, everything is being much more bearable and possible thanks to the help received so far,” said Riba, who thanked his friends for the support they gave him to ensure that it ceased to be “extreme darkness.” Finally, the artist has died at the age of 73 due to pancreatic cancer.