HK & Les Saltimbanks

Born in the Lille metropolitan area around Kaddour Hadadi, known as HK, HK & Les Saltimbanks formed in 2009 as a continuation of its singer’s path within the Ministère des Affaires populaires. The collective develops a popular music nourished by French chanson, reggae, blues, Maghrebin sounds and folk, with a strong emphasis on the accordion, guitars, mandola and collective singing. This blended aesthetic accompanies texts focused on social issues, inequalities, migrations or public freedoms. HK & Les Saltimbanks released Citoyen du monde in 2011, followed by Les Temps modernes in 2012, an album to which notably Flavia Coelho, Karimouche and Souad Massi contributed. Followed by Rallumeurs d’étoiles in 2015, L’Empire de papier in 2017 and Petite Terre in 2020, which extend this writing between intimate storytelling, political perspective and live energy. The group has been touring since its beginnings between festivals, venues and activist gatherings, in a troupe format where the collective dimension remains central. In 2021, the song Danser encore achieved wide diffusion in public space and sits in the continuity of HK & Les Saltimbanks’ repertoire, marked by direct writing and arrangements open to several musical traditions.