The Sailor’s Legend

Born in Liège, Belgium, in ’81, it was at a very early age that I developed a passion for music, my greatest outlet. At the age of 12, my mother gave me my first guitar, and the adventure has continued ever since, without ever stopping, despite the difficulties that any artist can encounter in his or her career. In 1991, I discovered Nirvana and became interested in the whole Seattle grunge scene, then, in 1994, punk-rock hit me full force and has always been my preferred style, as has hip-hop, which I became passionate about a little later. I set up my first band with my childhood friends, who have since died of drug overdoses. May they rest in peace.

In ’99, I joined a melodic hardcore punk-rock band called “Hangin’Out” as the lead guitarist and main composer with my best friend Sambo, a bassist I’d met in college. It was a 10-year adventure, punctuated by concerts (around 250) in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, in small venues as well as large ones,releases on various labels, anecdotes, highs, laughs and arguments.

I’ve always enjoyed the group spirit, but I became particularly interested in hip-hop and solo production around 2007 after discovering Ill Bill, Jedi Mind Tricks, La Coka Nostra and a whole host of artists and producers, and then started producing under the name IkonMusic. Years of perfecting my art, both in composition and mixing, while continuing to progress on guitar, bass and developing a passion for sampling after discovering the Mpc and its infinite possibilities. I started buying vinyls at flea markets and developed my own universe.

In 2020, after finally being diagnosed as bipolar and battling depression for as long as I can remember, with appropriate treatment and follow-up, I shifted up a gear and decided to take on the American scene, which I’d always admired, at all costs. Social networks helped me enormously to do this, under the name that suited me perfectly, namely The Gloomy Sailor. It didn’t take long for my name to make the rounds of the American Hip-Hop Underground scene, and since then I’ve been fine-tuning the creation of beats that are generally very dark, as my pseudonym suggests, but also rather jazzy tracks with slightly lighter atmospheres. At the end of 2023, I joined the group God Division, based in Denver, Colorado, with a dozen members from several American states.