CONTACTS &
INFOS
Label : Baco Records
Booking contacts : gauthier@furax.fr
Nationality : French
Available on tour : On demand
BIOGRAPHY
20 years of career, 43 years of life. If Toma chooses, today, to tell his story in his new show “A L’Origine”, it is perhaps because his journey defines him more than his origins. Child born under X, then adopted at the age of 3 months, it is thanks to music that we begin to see him, to hear him. We are then in the early 2000s, he calls himself Mr. Toma and his first appearances on tapes are on various reggae/hip hop compilations before a first album IDENTITÉ, in 2006. His questions about his origins are already present.
On this first opus, Joey Starr takes him under his wing and sings on the first single, Kery James performs on the title “Ouvrir Ton Coeur” and Diam’s chooses him as the first part of his Zenith tour. This is a constant with Toma, he is always well surrounded. Validated by the French rap scene, having cut his teeth in sound systems, he is destined for a flourishing career in, what was not yet called, urban music. There is another constant with Toma: the opposite. The artist is still looking for himself. Freed of his dreadlocks and equipped with a guitar, he simply renamed himself “Toma” and released a second album in 2013, CHEZ MOI. “I wanted to see if under the layers of paint, an artist is hiding? If this wasn't just a misunderstanding. » The bend is a hairpin. Exit rap references, welcome pop/folk melodies and unifying songs bludgeoned across the airwaves. His single, “Les Bâtisseurs de France” gave him national popular exposure. The chorus is echoed throughout France and this artist, beloved by the French hip hop underground, quickly finds himself compared to Renaud or Christophe Maé. Toma goes to meet the public: his own, obviously, but also that of a certain Johnny Hallyday, who asks him to open more than thirty of his concerts during his tour in 2012. What greater validation than that from the Boss himself? The road is then clear, Toma is becoming a big name in French variety. But the tumults return. Relations with an industry, where “I love you, me neither” reigns, deteriorate and the questions catch up. This disproportionate exposure paradoxically brings him back to face his most primitive anxieties. Depression followed by an absence from the scenes for 7 years. Far from the lights, but with his acuity intact, he puts his pen at the service of other artists. Kery James, Tiken Jah Fakoly, Kendji Girac, and Florent Pagny, call on his writing and his talents as a composer. Before a long-awaited return. And what a return! In 2019, Toma resurfaced with “Hypersensible”, a new track with rapper Dosseh, which has 10 million views to date. Other singles followed, collaborations with Chilla in particular, and, finally, a third album. HYPERSENSIBLE, directed by the talented Medeline, was released in November 2020 and reestablishes Toma on the scene of French music. Back, but not yet calm. If the time we take for our mental health is never wasted, Toma has the appetite of an ogre after these years of absence. Beating the iron that still burns and since it never arrives where we expect it, a new EP, ENTRE US, is released in March 2022. Co-produced by his brother in arms Florian Rossi, aka P3Gase (Soprano, Louane, Stromaë), these 6 new songs give pride of place to acoustic sounds, melancholic and foggy atmospheres, to support texts that are more intimate than ever. A Louane with whom the human and artistic connection is obvious, who will lend her acting talents to embody the main character of the clip “Entre Nous”. Perhaps, almost 15 years after his debut, this total artist has finally shed all his costumes. His taste for melody is distinguished, his musicality has never been so sharp. “Someone who knows” is a direct response to “Identity”, released 15 years earlier. “As if to make peace with my story as a kid born under X. To say that, even if we don’t know where we come from, we can know where we are going. » Toma has finally found himself, anger is no longer the key word, the message becomes clear. He is entering the 2nd half of his life. The rest then becomes logical. Driven by his desire for comedy as well as by this guideline finally found, Toma once again reshuffles the cards and jumps into the void without a net. He wrote “A L’Origine”, which he co-directed with Sébastien Houbani. A musical show, between alone on stage and music, in which Toma looks back on his life, on his journey. A unique story, with universal potential. For Toma, it’s a risk-taking and a total exposure born from a visceral need to tell his story. Perhaps to meet the other, to repair oneself, to laugh and cry, to make peace in short. From the particular to the universal.
