Willie Colón, the legendary salsa icon, died Saturday morning, his family confirmed. He was 75. A cause of death has not been disclosed.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, and renowned musician, Willie Colón,” his family said in a statement on his official Facebook page. “He departed peacefully this morning, surrounded by his loving family.”
The statement continued, “Although we mourn his absence, we also rejoice in the eternal gift of his music and the cherished memories it created, which will live on forever.”
Born William Anthony Colón Román on April 28, 1950 in the Bronx in New York City, the musician embraced his Puerto Rican heritage, learning to speak Spanish from his grandmother Antonia.
He launched his six-decade career as a teenager, releasing his first album, 1967’s El Malo, at the precocious age of 16 alongside Héctor Lavoe. Their partnership was a fruitful one, the duo became one of record label Fania Records’ most important salsa acts.
“Today we bow our heads as the world mourns the loss one of the greatest artists of our time — the incomparable Willie Colón: legendary trombonist, visionary composer, master arranger, emotive singer, bold producer, fearless director, and tireless innovator,” Fania Records said in a statement.
“We are heartbroken by the passing of an icon whose sound transcended the dance floor and defined an era. A pillar of Fania Records, Willie helped bring Latin music from the streets of New York to audiences around the world,” the statement continued. “His music declared identity, pride, resistance, and joy. His music was not just heard; it was lived.”
Lavoe provided the young Colón music lessons, encouraging the musical prodigy to be innovative with instrumentation and song structure.
Colón’s love for music began years prior, while in elementary school, where he played the flute, and shortly after the bugle. By age 13, he picked up the trumpet and began taking lessons, all of these early musical forays informing his distinguished technique and style.
He composed a salsa classic with Lavoe in 1969, “Che Ché Colé” from Cosa Nuestra, infusing Afro-Caribbean music with Puerto Rican rhythms. Their pioneering sound was the bedrock that led to salsa’s enduring popularity, which erupted in the Seventies.
In 1976, he turned experimental eye to producing a ballet, “El Baquiné de Los Angelitos Negros,” introducing his symphonic salsa style.
The Seventies also ushered in another fruitful partnership, with Panamanian singer-songwriter Rubén Blades. Though their first collaboration came by way of 1977’s Metiendo Mano! that showed the promise of what was to come, it was the album that followed that cemented the greatness of their partnership. Their 1978 album, Siembra, which landed at Number One on Rolling Stone’s Best Salsa Albums list, became the best-selling salsa album of all time, a distinction it kept for decades.
By the end of the Seventies, he ventured into a solo career and also worked in film and television and was known for being a sociopolitical activist later in life.
Over Colón’s prolific career he crafted more than 40 albums, earning him nine Gold and five Platinum records. His discography — he sold more than 30 million albums worldwide, per Fania, over the course of his career — includes his collaborations with Lavoe, Blades, Celia Cruz, David Byrne, Soledad Bravo, and Ismael Miranda. He was nominated for eight Grammy Awards and earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Recording Academy in 2014.
North West with her mom at a Lakers game in 2024
North West Was Born To Be a Star
As the celebrity children of the 2010s come of age and follow in their parents’ footsteps, we’ve arrived at the next generation of nepo babies. There’s no better example right now than North West, scion of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s celebrity empire, who, at 12 years old, seems poised to become a fixture in the future of not only music but also fashion. Take her recent single, “Piercing on My Hand,” which arrived on DSPs on Feb. 6, and was reported as a soul-sampled track produced by Ye and Will Frenchman. The single was reportedly released via Gamma., the independent music company co-founded by former Apple exec Larry Jackson in 2023 — the same company Ye recently partnered with for the release of his upcoming album, Bully. She also joined her dad onstage in Mexico City to debut “Piercing on My Hand” live. It’s a position that’s by now familiar for North, who previously appeared on Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures single “Talking/Once Again,” which reached Number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also charted in the U.K.
Perhaps this all represents a maximalist approach to the challenge of raising kids in the public eye. While it’s common to see celebrities attempt, with varying levels of success, to shield their children from the limelight, North has been slowly learning how to navigate being born into fame. This week, People reported that her mom, Kim Kardashian, filed applications in January to trademark the company name “NOR11” for use in the sale of clothing and accessories, including dresses, footwear, loungewear, hats, watches, jewelry, handbags, and cosmetics cases. North has already gained attention for her sense of style, raising eyebrows after revealing piercings on her middle finger last September, prompting online criticism because of her age. Her debut single is partly inspired by the controversy.
In addition to “Piercing on My Hand,” North has since racked up a handful of production credits for the underground rap staple Babyxsosa, including “Tokyo” and “Viral,” released as loosies on social platforms last month. The latter samples Chief Keef’s “Love Sosa” with a kind of dense, atmospheric texture that also recalls “Hold My Liquor,” the Chief Keef-assisted cut from Kanye’s 2013 opus Yeezus. North West’s producer tag, an anime voice squeaking “North-Chan” in Japanese with the sweetness of a kids’ video game, is already on its way to becoming iconic. In January, she landed a notable early placement as a producer on “Justswagup,” a single by Mag!c and Lil Novi — Lil Wayne’s son, who is 16 years old, putting him, like North, squarely in the “next-gen rap royalty” conversation.
Last month, North went on Instagram Live and answered questions from her followers about her journey learning how to make music, sharing snippets of in-progress beats, and describing more about her inspirations. That she’s so far leaned into the sound of her generational cohort, a frenetic, almost hyperpop-infused take on hip-hop, is more evidence of the genre’s changing sound. For their part, both of North’s parents are offering their support. On Monday, Kim Kardashian shared a clip on her Instagram of her listening to North’s song in the car, despite what would appear to be ongoing acrimony between Ye and Kim.
North is less a carbon copy of her parents than a Gen Alpha translation. At 12 years old, she was raised in the feed, is fluent in online culture, and is learning early that identity is something you can iterate in public. The nepo-baby conversation, which typically ascribes unearned privilege and access to the children of celebs, falls short of describing what’s actually interesting about North West. She represents how childhood, branding, and art are collapsing into a single timeline, and she is already moving through it like it’s her native language.