Nuyorican music icon, activist, and retired law enforcement officer Willie Colón passed away in his native New York on Saturday at the age of 75, leaving an unfillable and quintessentially American void in Spanish-language music.
Colón was a pioneer of the tropical dance music genre known as “salsa” and inspired decades of Hispanic dance music around the world. In addition to singing and playing instruments, he was an accomplished producer, prominent civil rights activist, and entered the police academy when he was 64, fulfilling a lifelong dream to be a law enforcement officer. He developed a popular “gangster” image – including album covers depicting him as a killer on multiple occasions – about two decades before rap artists such as Tupac and NWA. He made the trombone look cool.