Photo: Peter Tanner/UPI/Shutterstock
Shane Yellowbird, a well-known Cree country singer from Canada, died unexpectedly on Monday, his family confirmed toCBC News. He was 42.
Yellowbird became an award-winning singer after a stuttering condition led him to music, CBC reported.
While a cause of death has not been publicly revealed, close friends shared that the singer had a history of health conditions including epilepsy.
“Several years ago he started to share that he wasn’t doing as many shows because he was suffering from seizures,” Yellowbird’s friend and fellow musician Crystal Shawanda told CBC News.
CP PHOTO/Troy Fleece
“From the moment we met he called me lil Sis and I called him Bro, we were just 2 Rez kids that decided to go for it and we’d behave as such whenever we saw each other, veterans of the sort,” she wrote alongside a photo of the pair. “We were lucky to be there, and we knew it. So many memories of so many back stages, when I won female artist of the year at the CCMAs he was right there waiting backstage, so proud.”
In 2007, Yellowbirdwon the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) Rising Star Award. One of his most popular songs, “Pickup Truck,” was his first top-five hit on the Canadian Country singles chart in the summer of 2007, CBC News reported.
The manager said he knew his former artist had epilepsy, and sometimes seizures, but did not learn of his death until Tuesday morning.
“I never signed Shane because he was Indigenous. I signed Shane because of his talent. But the Indigenous community obviously embraced him and we were very grateful for Indigenous programs that brought him to the forefront.”
source: people.com
