Henri Belolo, a Founder of the Village People, Dies at 82

Henri Belolo, a creator of the Village People, the disco group that found mainstream success by performing campy songs like “Y.M.C.A.” while attired as macho archetypes, died on Aug. 3 at his home in Paris. He was 82.

His son Jonathan said the cause was pancreatic cancer.

Mr. Belolo had been a music producer and executive in Morocco and France in 1977 when one night he and the composer Jacques Morali, his business partner, were at the Anvil, an after-hours gay nightclub in the West Village of Manhattan. They noticed a bartender who doubled as a dancer wearing a headdress and loincloth.

As they watched, the man, Felipe Rose— who was wearing that outfit to honor his Native American father — attracted the attention of a man dressed as a cowboy.

“Jacques and I suddenly had the same idea,” Mr. Belolotold the website Disco-Disco in 2000. “We said, ‘My God, look at those characters.’ So we started to fantasize on what were the characters of America. The mix, you know, of the American man.”

Source: The New York Times

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