Louis Armand Aristide Bruant (6 May 1851-11 February 1925) was a French cabaret singer and comedian.
Biography[]
Louis Armand Aristide Bruant was born in Courtenay, Loiret, France in 1851, and he settled in Montmartre, Paris at the age of 15, searching for work upon his father's death. While he was born into a bourgeois family, he related more to his working-class neighbors and became a chanson realiste singer, singing songs about the life of the Parisian working class. One of his songs, A biribi, was named for the slang term for being sent to disciplinary battalions in Algeria. Bruant befriended the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who painted him in his iconic red shirt, black velvet jacket, high boots, and long red scarf. In 1885, he opened his own club, serving as master of ceremonies and cracking jokes at the expense of the cabaret's upper-class patrons, who had come to the slum of Montmartre to experience its bohemian culture. He died in 1925.