The French electronic musician Kavinsky, known for the song Nightcall which achieved iconic status after its inclusion in the Ryan Gosling film Drive, has died aged ۵۰.
A police source speaking to French newspaper Le Figaro indicated that the suspected cause of death was a stroke. Kavinsky, real name Vincent Belorgey, had reportedly been complaining of headaches in recent days, and he was discovered at home after a concerned neighbour alerted emergency services.
Parisian authorities are investigating his death but said “no suspicious elements” were found at his home.
Emmanuel Macron was among those paying tribute to him, calling him “a source of French pride forever”.
Part of the rich electronic music scene in France that flourished in the wake of Daft Punk and others, Belorgey earned so much acclaim for Nightcall that he ended up performing it at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris in ۲۰۲۴, backed by the French band Phoenix and Belgian pop singer Angèle on vocals.
Born in Paris in ۱۹۷۵, Belorgey’s music career took off in the mid-۰۰s. The high-energy electro of his debut single Testarossa Autodrive meant it dovetailed with the “blog house” scene that had also spawned French artists such as Justice and SebastiAn, and he was signed to the label Record Makers, with whom he released five EPs and two albums.
With Brazilian singer Lovefoxxx on vocals, ۲۰۱۰’s Nightcall became his most successful and renowned track. Co-produced with Daft Punk member Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, this prowling, nocturnal electronic reverie paired malevolence and romance in a way that made it a perfect choice for the opening credits of Nicolas Winding Refn’s ۲۰۱۱ thriller Drive. It has been streamed more than half a billion times on Spotify alone, with another ۳۵۰m YouTube plays. It reached the French Top ۱۰ on release, with the version performed at the Olympics reaching No ۳.
His debut album Outrun sketched out the grand concept for Belorgey’s Kavinsky alter ego – a young man who crashes a Ferrari Testarossa in the ۸۰s and returns zombie-like in the ۰۰s – and it reached No ۲ in the French album charts. He followed it with Reborn, in ۲۰۲۲.
Along with the vintage Ferrari references and sunglasses-and-bomber-jacket fashion sense, his sound also harked back to ۱۹۸۰s and that decade’s cinematic synths. “Everyone says, that guy is stuck in the past!”, he said in a ۲۰۱۳ interview. “I don’t sit around missing things from older times – I’m just from the ۸۰s, and so my influences come from that period. That is what is in my veins.”
The Weeknd appeared on a version of Kavinsky’s song Odd Look, and in ۲۰۲۲ Kavinsky said the pair would potentially work on new music together.
Also paying tribute was French culture minister Catherine Pégard, who said: “France loses one of its most singular voices. From the film Drive to the Paris Olympics, the entire world had pulsed to Nightcall. Both danceable and nostalgic, his music will continue to resonate across generations and borders.”
