Lino

Lino is a French rapper of Congolese descent, born in 1974 and raised in Villiers-le-Bel, in the Val-d'Oise department north of Paris, the same milieu that produced the Secteur Ä collective. He first made his name alongside his brother Calbo as one half of Ärsenik, whose albums helped define the sound of French rap in the late 1990s and 2000s.

Beyond Ärsenik, Lino was a member of the Bisso Na Bisso collective, which explored the Congolese roots shared by many of its members, and of the group Noyau Dur. As a solo artist he released the albums «Paradis assassiné» and «Requiem», the latter arriving a decade later and cementing his reputation among longtime fans.

Lino is widely regarded within French hip-hop as one of the genre's most technically gifted lyricists, prized for a dense, literary writing style and a distinctive, unhurried flow rather than for chart success or heavy media exposure. His influence rests less on commercial visibility than on the deep respect he commands from peers and connoisseurs of French-language rap.