Village People creator dies aged 82
Henri Belolo, the music producer who helped create the Village People, has died aged 82, the French authors’ copyright board said Monday. The Moroccan-born songwriter and impresario was one of the pioneers of the disco movement, which swept the world’s dance floors in the late 1970s. He formed the sixpiece band which had huge hits such as “Y.M.C.A”, “In the Navy” and “Macho Man” along with fellow Frenchman Jacques Morali after he moved to New York. Village People played on camp gay fantasy characters of butch builders, bikers, cowboys and soldiers, and quickly became a pop culture sensation. “Y.M.C.A” quickly became an anthem for the LGBT community.
Although Belolo was not gay himself, he saw the band’s image as embodying the carefree party spirit of the community in the years before the AIDS epidemic. The French society of authors, Sacem, told AFP that Belolo’s son had confirmed he had died. “Sad to learn of the death of Henri Belolo,” the group tweeted. “He contributed to the rise of dance, disco and house music in France and wrote for... the Village People,” it added.
Belolo and Morali-who was also born in Casablancahad already been successful in France with their Carabine label before the friends left for the US in 1973, where they formed the Philadelphia disco outfit, The Richie Family, who had a global hit with “The Best Disco in Town” in 1976.
Morali-who also wrote songs for Cher and the Franco-Egyptian diva Dalida-died of AIDS in 1991. The pair helped popularize breakdancing and hip hop in Europe in the early 1980s with the New York group Break Machine. Their Scorpio Music label was also a key player in the rise of house music in France later in the decade.