Manu Chao (born José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao on June 21, 1961 in Paris, France) is a French singer and political activist of Spanish (Galician-Basque) origin. He sings in Spanish, French, English and Portuguese and occasionally in a number of other languages. Chao began his musical career with Hot Pants, a French band that combined several musical styles and languages. The musician then founded the band Mano Negra with several friends in 1987, becoming a solo artist after it disbanded. Early life Chao's mother was from Bilbao, in the Basque region of Biscay, Spain; his father, writer and journalist Ramón Chao, was from Galicia. They moved to Paris to escape Francisco Franco's dictatorship—Manu's grandfather had been sentenced to death. Shortly after Manu's birth, the Chao family moved to the outlying suburbs of Paris, and Manu spent most of his childhood in Boulogne-Billancourt and Sè

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