Passi

Born in Brazzaville in 1972 and arriving as a child in Sarcelles, Passi emerged at the end of the 1980s in the nascent French rap scene with Ministère A.M.E.R., a group formed notably with Stomy Bugsy, before helping to structure the Secteur Ä collective around several artists from the northern suburbs of Paris. His writing blends street rap, social observation, Afro references and more melodic choruses, with a direct phrasing that moves between French hip-hop and Congolese influences. Passi began his solo career with Les Tentations in 1997, an album supported in part by collaborations with Akhenaton, and continued with Genèse in 2000, Odyssée in 2004 and Évolution in 2007. At the same time he developed a role as producer by founding Issap Productions and launching the compilation series Dis l’heure 2..., at the crossroads of rap, zouk, ragga and other urban aesthetics. In the late 1990s he also took part in Bisso Na Bisso, a Franco-Congolese collective that linked French rap and Central African music, notably on the album Racines in 1999. Passi thus remains associated with a generation that brought hip-hop, Afro and popular scenes in France into dialogue, while continuing his musical projects across the decades.