Kamini Zantoko is a Black French musician and screenwriter.

Personal life

Kamini's father—Seyolo Zantoko—and his family moved from

Zaire Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...

Marly-Gomont Marly-Gomont () is a commune in the Aisne department, administrative region of Hauts-de-France (formerly Picardy), northern France. Population Personalities *A song by the rapper Kamini depicts Marly-Gomont. The video received almost 16 mi ...

, France in 1975. They had difficulty assimilating as the first Black people in town. Kamini grew up there, and by summer 2006, was working part-time as a nurse. Seyolo died sometime prior to 2012.

Career

Aspiring to make hip hop music, in 2006 he wrote about Marly-Gomont ("

"). In his music video, made in late June on a budget of (equivalent to € in ), he raps about farming and games with his friends and fellow villagers. On 30 August, Kamini uploaded the video and cold-emailed promotions to

record companies A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produc ...

; instead, a t-shirt retailer shared the link online, and by the end of the day, "Marly-Gomont" was a hit. Off the merits of his amateur

viral video A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhong Lan, Alexander Haupt ...

, Kamini signed with

RCA Records RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also A ...

on 2 November to publish "Marly-Gomont" and two more albums. In 2012, Kamini wrote and narrated the autobiographical film ''

The African Doctor ''The African Doctor'' (original title: ''Bienvenue à Marly-Gomont'') is a 2016 French comedy-drama film based on the life of Seyolo Zantoko, the father of the musician Kamini. It was co-written by Kamini and directed by Julien Rambaldi. It stars ...

'' (french: text=Bienvenue à Marly-Gomont, translation=''Welcome to Marly-Gomont'') to pay tribute to his father. It was released in 2016, directed by Julien Rambaldi.

References

External links

* {{authority control 21st-century French screenwriters Black composers French male screenwriters French people of Republic of the Congo descent French rappers living people male nurses male rappers people from Aisne RCA Records artists year of birth missing (living people)