FROM BBC WEBSITE 8TH AUGUST 2019
Henri Belolo, who co-founded pop group the Village People and co-wrote hits including YMCA, Go West and In The Navy, has died at the age of 82.
Belolo was born in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1936. He moved to France in his twenties and received his musical education in Parisian jazz clubs.
As he refined his skills as a DJ and producer, he chanced upon an import of TSOP(The Sound of Philadelphia) by the band MSFB and fell in love with the sounds of disco.
He moved to the US in 1973, where he met fellow Moroccan producer Jacques Morali. They teamed up to produce hits for the Ritchie Family, including Brazil, Best Disco In Town and Give Me A Break.
'Bigotry and hypocrisy'
In 1977, he and Morali assembled the six-member Village People after a chance encounter in New York. "We were walking around [Greenwich] Village and we saw an Indian playing bells on the street," he told The Parisian Today.
"Intrigued, we followed him to a bar where he was a waiter, and sang a disco number every 20 minutes. Among the customers was a guy with a cowboy hat. That was the trigger: To create a group with all the stereotypes of the American male."
- Belolo wasn't sure the Village People would cross over to the mainstream, but the irresistible choruses of Macho Man, In The Navy and YMCA helped the band sell 100 million records worldwide.
"I am devastated by the untimely death of Henri Belolo who was my former producer, mentor and co-creator of Village People," said the band's lead singer/policeman Victor Willis.
