When did you start making music?

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When I was nine, my family and I moved to Dubai. There I studied an Arabic percussion instrument called the darbuka or the tabla. Percussion was my first introduction to music. Then from the age of 14 to 17 years old I lived in the Congo in a small town called Pointe Noire; that's where I made my first songs. After my graduation in Abu Dhabi, I moved to Paris, to attend art school…When I was in the south of France, in a town called Pau, I began making music by taking drum lessons for two years, and Arabic lessons while I was in Dubai. That's where it all started, really. With rhythm. But I really started to make my own songs in the Congo, at the age of 15-16 , because I really felt the need to express myself, to sing what I was living. Back there I met a really important man for me: a Congolese beat-maker named Mister Flash who taught me how to record myself at home, and gave me my first music software—FruityLoops—so I could put my songs on Myspace. So that's where I really started music.

How are you so well-traveled for your age? Where else have you been and how have your travels influenced you?

We moved a lot because of my parents' jobs, and it was amazing to live in countries so different from one another, but still with music all around. I've been to India, Jordan, South Africa, Namibia, Senegal, Australia, Madagascar, Oman, The States, and a lot of countries in Europe, just to visit… I wanted to make music to connect all of these influences, and make a multicultural music with these experiences.

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Both “Come” and “Makeba” make explicit reference to Africa. What influence has African music had on you, specifically?

It's in the Congo that I discovered how to make songs, so it's a really important place for me; it's where I was musically born and where I found myself. Also it's in my family—my mother is half Malagasy, so when i was little I listened to a lot of african music, like Miriam Makeba, Oumou Sangare, Salif Keita, Youssou N'Dour. I began music with rhythm and African music really moves me, so I'm going back there as soon as I can, but I have some work to do first!