David Grammont, better known to French music fans as Tonton David, was born in La Réunion on 12 October 1967. While he was still in his childhood, David's parents moved to Gambia then Senegal, before finally deciding to emigrate to France. David thus spent the rest of his childhood and early adolescence between the 15th arrondissement of Paris and a suburb to the north of the city. David, a turbulent teenager, left home at the age of 14 and spent several years messing around before finally deciding what he wanted to do with his life. It was David's trip to England in 1987 that proved to be a revelation to the young French teenager, for it was there that he discovered the Rasta scene.

David, a passionate music fan, soon got heavily into soul and reggae and it was not long before he got together with a couple of friends and formed his own group. David started to devote all his free time to songwriting. He also took charge of organising impromptu concerts in local squats where he proved his talent as a skillful 'toaster' (similar to rapping only the singer 'toasts' over a reggae rhythm rather than a hip hop beat).

In 1990 Tonton David got his big break when he was featured in a TV report about "Black Paris". Tonton David's impressive performance on this TV programme soon led to him being signed by the Virgin label. Shortly afterwards the singer went into the studio to record "Peuples du monde", a song which was featured on the famous French rap compilation "Rapattitudes". "Peuples du monde" proved such a hit with the French public that Tonton David was soon heading off to a London studio to start work on his début album. "Le blues de la racaille", released on 2 December 1991, was mainly a fusion of reggae and raggamuffin. But Tonton David also wove in a number of other musical influences such as gro kâ (from the French West Indies), Zairian rumba and a healthy dose of soul. Tonton David's laid-back ragga style and his hard-hitting lyrics which explored social issues such as unemployment, racism and general mal de vivre, proved immensely popular and the singer soon found himself transformed into a kind of figurehead for a whole generation of French youth.

Despite the enormous success of his first album, Tonton David did not consider himself to be a 'real' musician. Indeed, the young man was still wondering whether he might not go off and do something else. Two major concerts soon convinced Tonton David that he had found his true vocation, however. In 1991 Tonton symbolically went back to his roots, performing in front of an audience of 12,000 music fans at the Fête des Kafs in Saint Denis in La Réunion. The following year Tonton was invited to Kingston, Jamaica where he headlined at the legendary Reggae Sunsplash festival, the most important reggae event in the music calendar. Tonton's distinctive toasting style and his laid-back French ragga went down extremely well with the international audience of reggae connoisseurs.

In 1993 Tonton David went off to the French countryside of Dordogne to begin work on his second album. When he had finished writing the 13 tracks which would appear on "Allez leur dire" he flew off to Memphis to record his new album with a group of highly talented musicians. Tonton had very clear ideas of what he wanted on his second album and he took charge of the production himself, aided and abetted by a number of reggae stars such as Tyrone Downie, the legendary keyboard-player from Bob Marley's Wailers.

"Allez leur dire", which was released in 94, had a much less aggressive, hard-hitting feel to it than Tonton's début album. Tonton developed a more mature, sophisticated reggae on his second album, integrating a hint of soul and salsa here and there. Tonton's new-style reggae with its finely-honed lyrics proved immensely popular with the French public. Indeed "Allez leur dire" went on to sell 350,000 copies in just a few months, and Tonton also scored a hit with the first single release "Sûr et certain".

But the song which really rocketed Tonton David to fame on the French music scene was "Chacun sa route". This song, taken from the soundtrack of the film "Un indien dans la ville", proved phenomenally successful when it was released as a single in 1995. Following the success of this single, Tonton went into the studio he had had constructed in his country house in Champigny to begin work on his third album. "Récidiviste", released on 10 November 1995, featured 14 new tracks which buzzed with an exciting "live" feel, despite the fact that they had been recorded during studio sessions. On his third album Tonton chose to orient himself towards a more traditional reggae style, integrating strong female backing vocals, a heavy bassline and a Hammond organ. The rhythm section was also brought to the fore, Tonton David enlisting the aid of the very best reggae percussionists such as the renowned Jamaican drummer Paul Kestick.

This third album spawned two successful singles, "Pour tout le monde pareil" and a duo with rai star Cheb Mami entitled "Fugitifs".

Meanwhile Tonton was hard at work in his home studio (which he had specially built in his backyard), giving a group of young protégés a helping hand with their albums. In fact, Tonton ended up taking precious time off from his own recording career to produce an album for the group Welcome, then went on to mastermind a reggae/ragga compilation entiteld "Sans limite". Tonton transformed his studio into a musical 'laboratory', encouraging his protegés to come up with a new sound which was not just a pale copy of Jamaican reggae.

This was exactly the approach Tonton himself took when he began working on his fourth album "Faut qu'ça arrête". Tonton branched out in a totally new direction working with a Haitian musician by the name of Papa Jube. He also began experimenting with musical programmers and computers, replacing the traditional instruments on his earlier work with the sound of synths and rhythm boxes which added a vaguely disturbing futuristic sound to his work. The album "Faut qu'ça arrête" was finally released in February 99 and soon went on to spawn a successful first single, "Faire face".

"Faire face/prendre les problèmes de fond/Assumer comme un grand garçon" ("You gotta face up to things, look your problems in the eye. You gotta start assuming your responsibilities like a big boy") If the lyrics of Tonton's new single are anything to go by, it looks like the popular French ragga star has discovered a new maturity since turning 30.

However "Viens", the new album Tonton released at the beginning of this year, failed to echo the success of his previous albums. Tonton hit the road again in the spring of 2000, playing a series of concerts up and down the country.

A few months later, his new producers failed to give him full support on the album he had been preparing and the project was postponed until further notice. In March 2002, his ex-recording company released a compilation of the artist’s hits. Despite having originally disapproved of the idea, Tonton David eventually came to terms with it and even wrote a special new track entitled "Y’a des hauts, y’a des bas".

When it came to working on his fifth album, Tonton David left Paris for a while and set himself up in the French countryside where he was able to work on his new material in peace. He took a short break from his country retreat, however, to record the single "La Gagne" with the rap group Intouchables. The song became an unexpected hit when it was released in February 2005. And Tonton ended up setting back the release of his new album, "Babelou" (to the autumn of that year) so that he could include "La Gagne" on it.

Tonton David's fifth album was an eclectic 'tour de force' featuring everything from reggae and roots to hip hop and dancehall (a sort of digitally boosted reggae). The single "Histoire de respect" confirmed Tonton's comeback on the French reggae scene – a scene that he himself had helped establish a full fifteen years earlier!

November 2005