Manu Chao was born as José Manuel Thomas Artur Chao on June 26, 1961 in Paris, to Spanish parents. Manu grew up bilingual and he was also influenced by the punk scene in the UK that florished while he was in his teens. It later helped him as an artist to cut cross-cultural swathe across styles and geographic boundaries. Initially manu used the moniker of Oscar Tramor as an artist name.



Manu Chao does not like to be pinned down on one specific style. The same goes for instruments: he sings, plays guitar and plays drums as well.



One of the bands Manu Chao played in as a teenager, was a rockabilly outfit called Les Hot Pants. They gained local critical praise but never went anywhere before breaking up.



In 1986, out of the ashes of les Hot Pants, Manu Chao formed a band called Mano Negra. It was named after an anarchist organization which operated in Spain. The line-up essentially consisted of Manu Chao on vocals, his trumpeter brother Tonio and his cousin Santiago Casiriego behind the drum kit.



The musicians fused rock, rap, flamenco and rai to create a heady brew they dubbed "Patchanka," a name derived from a Spanish pejorative for dancehall music.



Multilingual and decidedly multicultural, but with an edge heavily influenced by the punk rock of the Clash, they seemed comfortably at home at any place.



At the time of the release of the second album, "Putas fever", released in the Autumn of 1989, Manu Negra had already made a name for itself in Spain, Italy, The Netherlands and in Scandinavia. Sales passed 35,000 in France and 200,000 outside the county. The band gave concerts in South-america and toured the USA as the beginning act with Iggy Pop,they also managed to sell out the Town and Country club in London, twice !



Blessed with a heavier sound, an influence of the US tour, the succes of "King of the Bongo" in 1991, was incontestable. The band decided to oncentrate on South-America and embarked on an innovative project.



In the spring of 1992, Manu Negra departed accompanied by a theatre group, the departed on the Cargo Tour adventure, which would make them pass though all the main ports (Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Caracas, etc.) on board a ship especially designed and adapted to serve as a large, futuristic and perplexing stage.



This initiative, which permitted Mano Negra to enter into a close relationship with the local population, their vivacity despite thier poverty lead the band to form strong bonds with that part of the world. In Mexico the band was received as a band from the neighbourhood. In Cuba the Chao brothers followed the tracks of their grandfathers, who had been a long time inhabitor of the island.



After the break-up of Mano Negra in 1994, Manu Chao moved to South and Central America. He spent the next few years drifting around with his guitar and a four-track recorded.



The resultant collection of songs was released in 1998 on the "Clandestino" album. It included a reworking of the Mano Negra track "King of Bongo," which was picked up for use on the soundtrack to Madonna's The Next Big Thing.



Though Mano Negra had toured throughout Europe, Latin and South America, Manu Chao had hardly played live shows in the US. In 2000 Chao played a rare pair of shows in Los Angeles. In June 2001 it was followed by the release of "Proxima Estacion: Esperanza".