Patrick Esposito Di Napoli (January 18, 1964 – November 13, 1994) was a musician and member of the Quebec musical band Les Colocs, for which he played harmonica.[1]
Patrick Esposito Di Napoli (January 18, 1964 – November 13, 1994) was a musician and member of the Quebec musical band Les Colocs, for which he played harmonica.[1]
Di Napoli was born to a family of Italian descent in Perpignan, in the Pyrénées-Orientales département in France.
He started making music in the 1970s, sometimes writing his own lyrics and melodies. For a time he lived with other musicians in an artist's loft in Montreal.[2]
Di Napoli wrote the song "Séropositif Boogie", which appeared on the band's first album in 1993, about living with HIV.[3] He had contracted the virus from a tainted needle. He died on November 13, 1994, of complications from AIDS.[4][5]
Les Colocs paid homage to him by using pictures of him during live shows. They dedicated their final album, Dehors novembre (November Begone) (1998), to Di Napoli.[6] It is considered their best album.[1] The title track, written by lead singer Dédé Fortin, expressed the point of view of a dying man, and was later used as the soundtrack to Patrick Bouchard's animated short film Dehors novembre.[7]
He was portrayed by Dimitri Storoge in the 2009 film Through the Mist (Dédé, à travers les brumes).
