celebrity deaths

Ronald Bell of Kool and the Gang dies at 68

Agence France-Presse

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Ronald Bell of Kool and the Gang dies at 68

Ronald Bell, founding member from the funk band Kool and the Gang, answers questions during an interview March 1, 2018 in New York. - The funk classics of Kool and the Gang have found eternal life in everything from stadium pump-up songs to hip-hop samples to wedding parties. Yet more than 50 years after forming, the group itself has hardly slowed down."We do about 100 shows a year, all around the world, in every place you could imagine," Ronald Bell, one of four founding members of the group who is still active, said as Kool and the Gang passed through New York. (Photo by Don EMMERT / AFP)

AFP

Bell co-founded the heavyweight funk group in the early 1960s

Ronald Bell – a co-founder of Kool and the Gang, the heavyweight funk group behind hits like “Celebration,” “Jungle Boogie” and “Ladies’ Night” – died Wednesday, September 8. He was 68 years old.

The performer died at his home in the US Virgin Islands, the group’s publicist Angelo Ellerbee told AFP, without specifying a cause of death.

Bell founded Kool and the Gang with his brother Robert and friends Dennis Thomas, Robert Mickens, Charles Smith, George Brown and Ricky West in the early 1960s, fusing a foundation of jazz with smatterings of funk, disco, R&B and pop.

The group became a major smash in the 1970s, its brassy funk putting it in a class with Earth, Wind and Fire, the Isley Brothers and Sly and the Family Stone. 

Kool and the Gang scored a Grammy in 1978 for their contributions to the soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta.

The group was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018.
Born in Youngstown, Ohio in 1951, Bell also went by his Muslim name Khalis Bayyan. 

A self-taught musician, he wrote some of the ensemble’s major hits including “Celebration,” which is still a popular anthem at sporting events.

The group remains a DJ favorite and is heavily sampled especially in the rap world, its tracks appearing in songs by artists including Jay-Z, Nas, NWA, Tupac, The Wu-Tang Clan, Snoop Dogg, A Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes. – Rappler.com

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