Born on October 20, 1958 in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe (France), singer Patrick Saint-Éloi moved to mainland France at the age of 17, hoping to make it in the music business. It was in Paris that he made a decisive encounter with Georges Décimus, whom he joined in 1982 in the Kassav' band, initially as a backing singer, after a brief stint as lead singer of the Venus One group. The media exposure afforded by Kassav''s success, through countless concerts and albums, prompted Patrick Saint-Éloi to offer the public a more personal side to his work. In 1984, he released his first solo album, Mikik Sé Lanmou, which confirmed his status as a pioneer of "zouk love" with the hit "West Indies". Although busy with Kassav', he never forgot his solo discography, which he enriched in 1990 with a new chapter entitled À La Demande, followed by numerous other albums, including Bizouk in 1992, Zoukamine in 1994, Lovtans' in 1998 and Plézi in 2005. Although he left Kassav' in 2002 to return to Guadeloupe, he returned to Paris in 2007 to perform at Le Zénith for his 25th anniversary. Stricken with cancer, he died on September 18, 2010 at his sister's home in Guadeloupe. Three years later, Kassav' released its sixteenth album Sonjé , dedicated to him.
