Gaël Faye

An accomplished singer, rapper, and writer, Gaël Faye (born on August 6, 1982) emigrated to Marseille with his family escaping the Burundian civil war during his teenage years in 1995. There, he found solace in rap and hip-hop, which served as a catharsis for the painful experience of exile. Faye pursued a career in finance and moved to London before deciding to fully devote his time to music. In 2009, he formed the hip-hop duo Milk Coffee & Sugar with Edgar Sekloka and released one eponymous studio album that same year. Recorded between Paris and his native Bujumbura, Pili Pili sur un croissant au beurre (2013), his proper studio debut, was produced by Guillaume Poncelet and featured guest appearances by Ben l’Oncle Soul, Bo, and Pytshens Kambilo. The album spawned a short documentary on its making, entitled Quand deux fleuves se rencontrent, directed by Nicolas Bozino and Toumani Sangaré. 2016 found Faye pivoting to literature, as his debut novel Petit Pays went on to win several literary awards and would later be turned into a feature film towards the end of the decade. Now based in Kigali, the rapper returned to music with the EPs Rythmes et botanique (2017) and Des fleurs (2018), which featured Flavia Coelho on the single “Balade brésilienne.” Preceded by the singles “Respire” and the title track, sophomore effort Lundi méchant (2020) paid homage to American soul, jazz, and 90s hip-hop and included collaborations with legendary artists such as Christiane Taubira and Harry Belafonte.