Baloji, whose name means "sorcerer” in Swahili, was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1978. At the age of 4, he arrived in Belgium with his father and grew up in Liège. As a young adolescent, he discovered hip-hop, a passion for tagging, rap & dance. At 15 he joined the the Starflam Collective, a figurehead of Belgian hip-hop, who released a platinum selling disc "Survivant" (2001). Baloji quit the group in 2004 after a number of interpersonal disagreements and turned his back on music. It was a letter from his mother, whom he had not seen since 1981, and winning a poetry competition in Paris, that ...