Coming from a family where music was of vital importance, Toups began studying classical piano at age 6. At age 14, he discovered the saxophone—and with it, jazz. Later, he learned to play percussion and opened himself up to a wide variety of musical styles, from “son cubano” to Pygmy polyphony, big-band jazz, and Javanese gamelan… As a saxophonist, arranger, percussionist, bandleader, or sideman, he embarked on many years of diverse collaborations in dance, film, and, of course, music. In 1996, he formed his own group, the Paris Africans, for which he composed boldly fusion-style Afro-jazz pieces. In 2004, Toups was entrusted with the artistic direction of the first International String Music Festival in Libreville. He asked the Congolese actor and director George Mboussi (a longtime collaborator of the great playwright Sony Labou Tansi) to direct the opening performance. Feeling constrained by the barriers between genres, he sought to expand his artistic expression beyond the concert stage, developed an interest in theater, and invited choreographer and director Linda Gonin to collaborate with him on various projects.
In the late 2010s, her collaboration with actress and dancer Juliette Kempf allowed her to develop her approach to soundscapes on stage through a performance based on poetry by African women, as well as her participation in Lettres Vives and various educational programs organized by Désert en Ville.
