Helmut Lotti

The son of Luc and Rita (née Lagrou), Helmut Barthold Johannes Alma Lotigiers was born in Ghent, Belgium, and began his singing career with a visual and singing style in an obvious imitation of Elvis Presley,^[2] and was described as "De Nieuwe Elvis" (in Dutch) or "The New Elvis". His first two albums were Vlaamse Nachten ("Flemish Nights", 1990) and Alles Wat Ik Voel ("All That I Feel", 1992). After a few more albums, he changed direction in 1995 with the first of what became a long series of "Helmut Lotti Goes Classic" albums, which proved to increase his popularity. Since 2000 he has also made successful recordings in traditional Latino, African and Russian-style music.

Lotti sings in his native language Dutch, as well as Afrikaans, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian, Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and others. He has sold over 13 million albums worldwide.^[3]

Lotti does volunteer work as an ambassador for UNICEF. Lotti took part in the 0110 concerts against racism, organised by Tom Barman.^[4]

He was married 3 times, divorced 3 times and has 1 daughter. Lotti was diagnosed with autism as an adult.^[5][6]