James BKS

French-Cameroonian producer and composer based in Paris, James BKS develops a musical project at the crossroads of hip-hop, Afro-urban music and influences drawn from Central African traditions. The son of Cameroonian musician Manu Dibango, James BKS trained initially as a beatmaker between France and the United States, working in studios for rap and R&B artists before refocusing on his own work. Under his current stage name, James BKS builds a repertoire that blends brass sections, choirs, rhythms inspired by makossa and afrobeat, and rap writing, with particular attention to vocal arrangements and percussive textures. His tracks have led to regular collaborations with Anglophone and Francophone rappers and singers—most notably Q-Tip, Idris Elba and Little Simz—who extend this hybrid, international aesthetic. Equally present on stage at venues and festivals for contemporary music and in the studio as a producer for other projects, James BKS continues a trajectory in which modern hip-hop production converses with an overtly Pan-African imagination.