Born in Paris to Vietnamese parents, he started playing drums at the age of 15, then guitar, then electric bass. He devoted himself to music after a degree in Visual Arts and a master’s degree in Philosophy on Exoticism. In 1983 he co-founded the group ULTRAMARINE which then won 1st prize in the national Jazz de la Défense competition, and whose “DÉ” would later be defined as “the best World Music album of the year 1989