Dédé Fortin
André "Dédé" Fortin (1962-2000) was an important singer-songwriter of the Quebec music scene of the 1990s. He was the frontman of the musical group Les Colocs.
Profile
Dédé Fortin, was a singer and songwriter born in the Saguenay region of Quebec. A past cinema student of the Université de Montréal, he was also a respected video clip filmmaker. He gave the lyrics of his band, Les Colocs, humanity, simplicity and social conscience (especially about poverty). He was also a passionate believer in Quebec independence and brought his band to take a prominent role in the YES side of the 1995 Quebec referendum.
Fortin was sometimes a tortured soul. The often festive flavor of the melodies of his band are sharply contrasted by his tragic end, a youthful demise brought upon by the long agony of a self-inflicted knife wound to the heart, in his appartment of the Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhood of Montreal. For days, flowers and loving messages were brought by the people to the doorstep of his appartment building of Rachel Street, in honor of a man that embodied the music of a whole generation of Quebecois.
Upon the discovery, a poem was found. Condemned by doubt, immobile and timorous; I am like my people, undecisive and dreamer; I speak to who wants to hear of my fictive country; The heart full of vertigo and consumed by fear. André "Dédé" Fortin is now considered a major milestone of the history of Quebec music.