GAËL FAYE

He was born in 1982 in Burundi. After the outbreak of the civil war and the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, he arrived in France in 1995. Gaël Faye studied at a business school, obtained a master’s degree in finance and worked in London for two years for an investment fund. He decided to leave London to start a musical and writing career. Influenced by Creole literature as well as by hip hop culture, he released an album in 2010 with the group Milk Coffee & Sugar (revelation Printemps de Bourges). In 2013, he released his first solo album Pili Pili on a butter croissant. Recorded between Bujumbura and Paris, it feeds on diverse musical influences: rap tinged with soul and jazz, semba, Congolese rumba, sebene … In 2016, he released his first novel, Petit Pays, which won many prizes, including the price of the novel Fnac, Audiolib and Goncourt high school students. With the success of his first solo album, he released in 2017 the album Rythmes et Botanique followed by the album Des Fleurs in 2018.