Artist: Corneille
Genre(s):
R&B: Soul
Discography:
Birth of Cornelius
Year: 2007
Tracks: 12
Les Marchands de Reves
Year: 2006
Tracks: 14
Live (cd2)
Year: 2005
Tracks: 5
Live (cd1)
Year: 2005
Tracks: 14
Parce Qu'on Vient de Loin
Year: 2004
Tracks: 15
French-Canadian R&B singer Corneille translated personal tragedy into pop music success with his 2003 debut LP, Parce Qu'on Vient de Loin, a powerful and often excruciating birdcall oscillation elysian by his family's hit at the hands of a Rwandan decease police squad. Born Corneille Nyungura in Freiburg, Germany, on March 24, 1977, he was born into a Rwandan family complemental an overseas study programme. He withal washed-out the majority of his childhood in Africa, absorbing American Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and Prince. As a stripling Corneille likewise discovered his parents' assemblage of classic chanson records by Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, and others, and this melting mountain of influences converged to shape a tike presage wHO first base recorded his own original songs at eld 16. An appearance on Rwanda's national Discovery Awards send presently followed, only in April 1994 Corneille's budding music life history ground to a horrible kibosh when a Rwandan military team stormed his home, cleanup his Tutsi founder, his Hutu mother, and his brothers and sisters spell he looked on in terror from behind the family couch. Still reeling from his ordeal, Corneille joined up with a chemical group of beau Rwandan refugees and fled to Zaire, where he placed a German distich wHO once befriended his parents. The couple took him in and brought him to Europe, where he remained prior to moving to Canada in 1997. Upon subsidence in Montreal, Corneille began poring over communications piece moonlighting in O.N.E., an R&B terzetto he founded with friends from Haiti. After marking a Quebecois hit with the single "Zoukin'," the mathematical group became fixtures of the Montreal live electric circuit, opening for headliners including Isabelle Boulay. Corneille split from O.N.E. in 2001 to mount a solo career, earning attending and herald for a jailbreak performance at the 2002 Francofolies festival. The appearance earned him a gig aboard Eurythmics grad Dave Stewart, and the following twelvemonth he issued Parce Qu'on Vient de Loin, a wrenchingly honorable roman à clef documenting the deprivation of his syndicate and subsequent escape from his mother country. The title cut and "Seul au Monde" were both vast hits, and earned Corneille nominations as Best Newcomer and Best Album at the 2004 Victoires de la Musique awards. After a well-received spell that included an appearance at the Nice Jazz Festival, he returned to studio to hack "Dorothea Dix autonomic nervous system Ensemble," a duet with mbalax pioneer Youssou N'Dour for a fund-raising LP for the AIDS activism radical Ensemble Contre le Sida. At year's end, Corneille returned to Quebec to pile up the prestigious Félix prize for Best Male Artist of the Year. At a peculiar ceremony, he as well became an prescribed Canadian citizen. In 2005 he made his number one turn back trip to Africa in the decennary since his family's mutilate, playing at the N'Dour-organized Africa Live concert to raise pecuniary resource for malaria victims. Corneille's much-anticipated sophomore cause, Les Marchands de Rêves, in conclusion strike stores that November, painting a more positive portrayal of African society patch further embracing the Afrobeat, reggae, and soulfulness influences that dominated his youthfulness.
