Phalo Pantoja was born on 1977. He spent his youth in the old streets of Saint-Denis, near Paris.
In 1991, he began to sharpen his writing after he listened to a friend rapping on a “Saxo” joint. His obsession for rap started at this moment, while he was watching the French classic Rap TV shows such as Sidney’s “Hiphop” or Rapline on M6 Channel. This Spanish Peruvian rapping French froggy has been influenced by most American artists : Pete Rock, A Tribe Called Quest, Primo, Spinna, Jaydee (RIP)…
His addiction to crunchy sounds pushed him to use more and more vinyl samples and to use old vintage musical keyboards such as Prophet, Minimoog, Jupiter and Matrix synths, a long time before the hype for vintage gears crossed the street, leaving the sidewalks garbage to high end music shops racks…
Phalo remains faithful to his image of a child for whom music has no rules. Despite huge technological evolutions in computers and musical gears, Phalo doesn’t need any of the usual Japanese « all-in-one flagship » synths. His good old SP-1200 is always turned on, ready for recording his basic, instinctive and wild grooves. “Even tons of gears and years of music lessons will never replace a good couple of ears”.
In 1999, he composed 2 joints in Albi Montana’s first LP, released by “Menace records” (“Respect the family” and “The world‘s gone mad”).
There was very few buzz about these two joints but never mind! He kept on producing a couple of artists such as Tonio Renio or Jaahydd. Few years later,at the end of the year 2009, he decided to release his own album (started in year 2007).
This LP must be considered as a “calling card”. Phalo’s biggest motivation for this LP was to give a finger to the French rap hype and its paraplegic swing, proudly ignoring any of the Gangstarr or Common masterpieces…
He also wanted to make a tribute to his influences because he thinks that a good artist must be proud and unbeatable about his roots.
« Knowledge and culture are the biggest weapons of creation, that’s why Jazz, Soul and Funk will never be old school”.