Sides

Born in Benin in the 1970s, Patrick Ruffino is a bass player and singer. He grew up in Africa’s capital of funk, Cotonou, which is also the birthplace of voodoo music and culture. He learned to play a multitude of instruments, and to sing and dance, and his thirst for discovery and love of travel brought him to France at the end of the 1980s. Still very attached to his roots, he continued to draw inspiration from Africa through several trips back to his home country.

Hailing from a multicultural family, with a father belonging to the Benin Mina ethnic group (double ethnicity is very common in Nigeria), a mother from Burkina Faso, and a grandmother from Ghana, from an early age Patrick was exposed to an environment that allowed him to experience a mix of all types of African music.