Biga*Ranx set Bourges on fire last spring during an exceptional performance. Telly merged with his audience. We invite you to discover this Touraine artist during his concert last April.
Gabriel Piotrowski, Telly Del Mundo, better known as Biga*Ranx, was born in Tours in 1988. Son of artist and craftsman parents, his mother is a painter and his father a cabinetmaker, he had an eventful childhood with a stint at the DDASS . It was there that with his friends and his brother, he immersed himself in urban culture. The pleasure at home is listening to music and the pocket money goes towards buying records. To give you context, we are at the end of the 90s, we are listening to Oxmo Puccino, Lunatic (Booba’s group) and also Big Red, who after two Raggasonnic albums, went solo with Big Redemption. Are you there?
Rap-oriented urban culture, Gabriel went roots when he discovered the record “Raw Roots” by Phil Pratt, a great Jamaican producer. Gabriel continues his musical apprenticeship by doing an internship, in 4th grade, at a reggae record store in Tours, focused on roots and seventies reggae. Then in 3rd year, another internship, this time at the other reggae record store in Tours, rather ragga dancehall. Gabriel says it himself, how lucky to have two reggae record stores in Tours.
Gabriel knows that he is not fit enough for school, too much of a free spirit. He sees no way, no way out. It was in sound systems that he flourished, where he set up with his brother and his friends, renting cellars, bringing back turntables. It was the craze at the time in Tours, “city of bars, parties and artistic”. Urban culture is music, but it’s also skateboarding! So on Simon Island, in the middle of the Loire, Gabriel and his friends spend time there, listening to sound. He left school, he went to Paris where he squatted in studios to grow up. Gabriel, Gaby, becomes Biga.
And here we are in the new millennium, in the early years of Youtube. On this platform, we are still experimenting, we don’t know everything. It’s on Youtube that Biga publishes a feat with Cotton which explodes. Cotton then validates him as Ranx. Biga*Ranx was born.
It was around his 18th birthday that Biga*Ranx went to Jamaica. A trip that opens his eyes to the world, enriches him culturally, but contrary to what is said, it does not change his life but it reinforces him in reggae. He’s in it, he knows it, it’s in reggae that he will make a career.
He quickly signed with a record company where he recorded his first album. Too fast ? Too young ? Today, despite the success, Biga*Ranx does not like his first albums which do not represent him.
Gabriel never stops. He works all the time, a courage instilled by his father. He gets up, he writes. Music allows him to live, to access comfort in life, to get by, to be a dad.
His album “1988” was released in 2017. Very autonomous, very sincere, it’s his album, his sounds, it’s this music that Biga*Ranx wants to make. He will continue with Sunset Cassette, St.soleil and Eh Yo! released in 2022. Lots of time on the roads, on stages. Everywhere he goes, Biga*Ranx makes the crowds dance and enters into harmony with his audience. From Sakifo to La Réunion to Printemps de Bourges, it’s madness in the pit. “Regarde moi”, “My driver”, “My face”, “Petite marie” are pieces that he loves to play on stage, in communion.
An artist with multiple components, Gabriel wants to move on to other projects. He says he is too focused on the Biga project. He’s not afraid to start again, he wants to explore other things. Such a talented artist is like cats, he has several lives, and that’s what we love.
2023-12-29 15:35:14
#BigaRanx #reggae #singer #ignited #Printemps #Bourges
