Gaël Faye

On November 18, 2027, at the Zénith Toulouse Métropole in Toulouse, Gaël Faye returns to the stage with a set that spans rap, chanson, and poetry. A rapper and novelist, he cultivates a precise style in which the intimate, heritage and the memory of exile intertwine. Also brought to wider attention by his novel Petit Pays (Prix Goncourt des lycéens) and the album Lundi méchant, he carries this narrative strand—close to spoken word—into his concerts, oscillating between confidences and collective storytelling. His latest novel, Jacaranda (Prix Renaudot 2024), applies the same attention to everyday detail, which nourishes his texts and gives them a tactile, emotionally resonant quality.

Accompanied by a band that blends acoustic instruments with a hip‑hop aesthetic, Faye lets groove and words circulate, from whisper to rhythmic delivery, without losing the thread of the stories he tells. African rhythms, songlike melodies and urban pulses answer one another, producing a concert that slips from the private notebook to the dancefloor, with a direct energy and a presence that invites sharing. Here, the pieces are as much to be listened to as they are to be lived, between memory, joy and movement.