The portrait
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The American-Filipino dancer and singer, a former icon of the 2000s, is preparing to return to the stage with the hits that made him famous.
Fame is, to us, a constantly renewed mystery. Billy Crawford, 42, stands before us in the lobby of a grand Parisian hotel near the Champs-Elysées. He poses for the photographer of Liberationalternating between smiles and more enigmatic pouts. The American-Filipino singer wears his cap backwards, he has a big chain around his neck with the initials “BC”, a luxury watch on his left wrist and his upper limbs are covered in numerous tattoos, including one of his now deceased cat, on his hand. In real life, he would probably look like a somewhat nerdy forty-something, but here, this is not real life. The current era is more than ever separating two types of people, those who are stopped to take a selfie and the average person. Billy Crawford falls into the first category – which allows him all eccentricities. Moreover, one of the waitresses of the place surreptitiously interrupts the photo shoot. She says to him, with a tender look: “You are a star, you are my whole childhood.”
What makes a star? Billy Crawford is a one-hit man, Trackin, first broadcast on FM in 2001 and a real success in Europe – particularly in France, where it all started. “My record company was about to drop me. A person from the French station didn’t know and gave the record to NRJ. They played the song
