{"id":2447234,"date":"2019-08-06T21:56:26","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T03:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=868333"},"modified":"2019-08-06T21:56:26","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T03:56:26","slug":"village-people-co-creator-henri-belolo-dead-at-82","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/village-people-co-creator-henri-belolo-dead-at-82\/","title":{"rendered":"Village People Co-Creator Henri Belolo Dead at 82"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/75927b.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>Henri Belolo, a music producer and co-creator of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/village-people\/\" id=\"auto-tag_village-people\" data-tag=\"village-people\">Village People<\/a>, died on Saturday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/entertainment\/music\/ny-village-people-henri-belolo-disco-producer-died-20190806-b42ywse5efaf3o2dbymr3sbjvq-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><em>New York Daily News<\/em><\/a> reports. He was 82.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHenri Belolo was a visionary and international business genius who helped define the look and the sound of the disco era,\u201d the group\u2019s original cowboy Randy Jones told the <em>Daily News<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The French producer was born in Casablanca, Morocco in 1936 and was reared on American and African music brought over by U.S. troops. When he was in his 20s he moved to Paris, France where he worked as a DJ and music producer. In 1973, he moved to the U.S., where he later teamed up with producer and fellow Moroccan Jacques Morali.<\/p>\n<p>In 1975, he and Morali produced the Ritchie Family\u2019s \u201cBrazil,\u201d which grew into a hit on the club circuit and eventually became popular worldwide. Beloli and Morali\u2019s partnership proved fruitful and continued into the next decade.<\/p>\n<p>Morali and Beloli would frequent the club scene and together they helped pioneer the disco movement. In 1978 they assembled the six-member band, Village People. The group embodied the free-wheeling, party spirit of the era, embracing and celebrating gay culture with costumes that fulfilled fantasy characters \u2014 a construction worker, police officer, biker, cowboy, soldier and Indian. The group spawned a number of indelible hits that remain staples in pop culture today, including \u201cY.M.C.A.,\u201d \u201cMacho Man\u201d and \u201cIn the Navy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PUoO4T_23pA?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Though the popularity of disco waned during the dawn of the Eighties, the Nineties saw a resurgence for the band, with the group performing in Sydney, Australia during 1991\u2019s New South Wales Rugby Final and at the MTV Movie Awards. The 2000s saw them opening for Cher during her Farewell Tour through 2005 and the group received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2008. Last year, the group released&nbsp;<em>A Village People Christmas<\/em>, its first new studio album in 33 years.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nmGuy0jievs?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>While Beloli was not gay, his music partner Morali was (Morali died of complications from AIDS in November 1991), and Beloli became a strong ally, seeing the injustice early on, although that was not his initial motivation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were keen of doing something for [gay liberation and the political side of it], because Jacques was gay, and I was feeling that an injustice was done to the gay community. And I did not like that American mentality of bigotry and hypocrisy. And I didn\u2019t see why these people would be treated like this. Like black people, as well \u2013 I did not like the way they were treated,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/daily.redbullmusicacademy.com\/2016\/04\/henri-belolo-interview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Beloli told Red Bull Music Academy<\/a> in a 2004 interview. \u201cSo I was not doing this, really, as a businessman trying to make a fortune, and it happens anyway, after. But I always say what comes from the heart goes to the heart. I really did it as a provocative, subversive way of telling you, \u2018This is the way it is.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/village-people-co-creator-henri-belolo-dead-at-82-868333\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Henri Belolo, a music producer and co-creator of the Village People, died on Saturday, New York Daily News reports. He was 82. \u201cHenri Belolo was a visionary and international business genius who helped define the look and the sound of the disco era,\u201d the group\u2019s original cowboy Randy Jones told the Daily News. The French [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 21:37:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}