Biography

Sylvain Richard (born 17 February 1979), better known by his stage name 20syl, is a French rapper, disc jockey and producer. He is a composer and MC in the group Hocus Pocus, member of beatmaker collective of DJs C2C, one half of the Hip Hop/Electronic duo AllttA and quadruple world champion DMC Team. He published his first EP, Motifs, in 2014, followed by Motifs II in 2015.

During his career, he also produced for artists and groups such as Diam's, Disiz, Kohndo, Slum Village, Fabe, Scred Connexion, Nakk, Sully Sefil, and is involved in projects such as Just Us vol.1 or Original Bombattak.

Richard, originally a graphic designer, graduated from the Graduate School of Fine Arts in Nantes Métropole. He began his musical career in his bedroom at his parents' house in Rezé.

In 1995, Richard and Cambia released their first mixtape, Première Formule. Recorded in a makeshift studio, the first self-produced cassette was sold in the courtyard of their school. In 1997, they associated with DJ Greem, a high school friend of Richard's, to form the group Hocus Pocus, and released their first album as a trio, Seconde Formule, in 1998. Hocus Pocus mixes elements specific to hip-hop (scratches, samples, rap) to an instrumental sound influenced by jazz, soul and funk. Alongside Hocus Pocus, they created in collaboration with DJ Atom and DJ Pfel, a group called C2C (also known as "Coups2Cross"). C2C was the world champion DMC team four years in a row from 2003 to 2006. They found the collaboration of two MCs and a DJ did not work on stage and went their separate ways; Richard continued his production as 20syl and DJ Greem invested specifically in C2C.

In 2001, Richard worked again with DJ Greem and Cambia on stage as Hocus Pocus. The same year, they created the label On & On and released the maxi Sick, which sold around 4000 copies. Three years later, they released the album 73 Touches (in reference to the number of piano keys). Largely influenced by jazz, they refer to Miles Davis and Billie Holiday. Mathieu Lelièvre on keyboard, Hervé Godard on bass and David Le Deunff on guitar complement the trio. The same album was reissued in 2006 with a new version of Sick and six new titles.

The album Place 54, released in October 2007, increased their willingness to create acoustic hip-hop. For this album, they signed with the label Motown France to promote and distribute it. The album was well received and attracted interest from mainstream TV and radio. In 2008, Hocus Pocus was nominated for a Victoires de la Musique award in the category "Urban Music Album of the Year". ...

Source: Article "20syl" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.