Gilles Floro

Gilles Floro was born in Saint-Claude, Guadeloupe, on April 18, 1964. He spent his childhood in the heart of the Caribbean archipelago, and his teenage years brought him into contact with music for the first time. He took up the keyboard and went on to form the group Jazz Power with his brother Jean-Claude. His talented use of the instrument found its way to the ears of some of the island's most renowned artists. He appeared with several groups, including L'express Band and Les Aiglons. Although his career as a musician was already well established, Gilles Floro had more personal aspirations and recorded his first album, Rêve Bleu, in 1986. Audiences were instantly hooked, and tracks such as "Ten Kaut" and "Rêve Bleu " were a huge success. His music, a zouk marked by the singer's keyboard melodies, won over listeners, who turned his new track "A Pa Pawol En Lè" into a real hit the following year. His career is marked by as many albums - Mona Lisa (1988), Ho! Doudou Yes (1991) and Jukebox' (1993) - as hits such as "Frékans", "Viré" and "On Doucè". Having established himself as one of the leading figures in West Indian music and zouk, alongside the legendary group Kassav', Gilles Floro's rise to fame came to an abrupt halt. On June 22, 1999, as the artist was installing a satellite dish on his roof, he received a shock and fell to his death. The people of Guadeloupe mourned his star, whose destiny came to a tragic end at the age of 35, while he was preparing a new album, his eleventh, Désolé..., which was released posthumously the same year.