Finding My Voice Through Music: A Lifelong Appreciation
I was born in Menen, a small town resting on the fragile border between France and Belgium, a place where lines on a map blur and cultures quietly meet. Music found me early in life. My father was its first messenger — his guitar leaning against the wall, the keyboard humming softly in the corner, the trumpet shining under the light. He sang, too. Whenever there was a celebration, music was never absent; it filled the room like an invisible guest that always knew how to stay.
From those earliest days, music became part of my language. I was sent to music school, and by the age of fourteen I was already playing in my first band, holding a guitar that felt almost like an extension of my own hands. It wasn’t about ambition back then — it was about belonging, about sound, about discovering who I was through chords and rhythm.
Throughout my youth, music was the red thread that held everything together. School never truly captured my heart, but weekends did. Making music with friends became my escape, my refuge. Long rehearsals, late evenings at the youth center, hanging around, listening, watching bands play — it all felt like opening a door to a world I didn’t know existed. A world where I felt alive.
I was lucky. My parents allowed me to study music seriously, and once I stepped into that world, everything went deeper. Days and nights blurred into one continuous rhythm — living and breathing music 24 hours a day, surrounded by like-minded souls who spoke the same unspoken language of sound.
Everything that came after grew from those early roots. The passion I still carry today was born in my teenage years, shaped by those moments of discovery, freedom, and connection. For all of it, I remain deeply grateful.