Born in 1979 in Kinshasa, the son of Congolese musician Tabu Ley Rochereau and a Senegalese mother, Youssoupha moved to France at age 10 after his mother’s death and grew up in the Yvelines. A graduate in cultural mediation from the Sorbonne, he established himself as a figure of conscious, literary rap with the albums À chaque frère (2007) and Sur les chemins du retour (2009). His fourth album, NGRTD (2015), certified gold, asserted a plural Black identity free of clichés. He has since pursued a demanding body of work with Polaroïd Experience (2018), Neptune Terminus (2021) and the more serene, spiritual Amour Suprême (2025).