Linda-Philomène Tsoungui

Linda-Philomène (Philo) Tsoungui (born 1992 in Plauen) is a German drummer, percussionist, and music producer. She is known as the drummer for The Mars Volta, as well as several German acts, including singer Mine, rapper Fatoni, and rapper Chefket.

Life and career
Tsoungui was born in Plauen to a Cameroonian father and a German opera singer mother. At the age of six, she moved to Hof, where she later attended the musically oriented Jean-Paul-Gymnasium high school. She initially received piano lessons before switching to drums, studying under Claudio Estay and Johannes Potzel.

From 2011 to 2015, she studied classical percussion at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München with Peter Sadlo and Bastian Jütte. During her studies, she participated in various ensembles, including the Munich-Percussion-Ensemble, which led her to concert tours in Egypt, Azerbaijan, and Oman. In 2014, she performed in the ensemble for the production of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's opera "Die Soldaten" at the Bavarian State Opera under Kyrill Petrenko. She also collaborated with Martin Grubinger, Kent Nagano, and Steve Reich. She was a scholarship recipient of the Neue Franz Liszt Stiftung and the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation LiveMusicNow.

After earning her bachelor's degree, Tsoungui studied jazz drumming in Munich for two semesters before starting her master's in Popular Music with a focus on Performance Art at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg in 2016. There, she studied under Claus Heßler and Udo Dahmen. Her master's thesis was titled "Ich bin zu für Dich" – "How the Capitalization of Femininity Constitutes the Success of German Female Rappers."

Tsoungui has played for numerous bands and artists, including Antonia Dering's SiEA, Tiger Tiger, Madanii, Evelinn Trouble, Donskoy, Elif, and Seba Kaapstad. She is currently the drummer for Mine, Fatoni, Chefket, Mal Élevé, Moli, and Lxandra.

In August 2017, she toured China and Hong Kong with the Hong Kong-based producer and singer Khalil Fong.

For Mine, she recorded the album "Klebstoff," released in May 2019 by Caroline Records. This was followed by numerous television appearances, including on ZDF's "Aspekte" and SWR's "Pierre M. Krause Show."

Since 2019, she has been the musical director for Fatoni, with whom she toured Germany in the fall of 2019.

In addition to performing in live bands, she composes and produces her own music. In 2018 and 2019, Tsoungui musically accompanied the Pop Culture Prize ceremony at the Tempodrom in Berlin with her compositions and solo performances.

Since 2022, she has been touring as the drummer for The Mars Volta.

During the 2024 Men's European Football Championship, Tsoungui will accompany the late-night show "Studio Pille-Palle," moderated by Fahri Yardım and Jonas Hector on MagentaTV, with her drum solos.

Teaching
Tsoungui has taught for "Online Lessons TV" and was a jury member of the "Austrian Drummer Awards" in 2018.

In September 2019, she gave her first clinic at the Dresden "Drum and Bass Festival" focusing on electronic production and drumming in a band context.

Selected discography

 * SiEA (2019, with Kira Linn, Patricia Römer, Antonia Dering, Theresa Zaremba, Frida Beck, Jutta Keeß, Bettina Maier, Amélie Haidt, Julia Hornung)
 * Tiger Tiger: O Trust (2019)
 * Mine: Klebstoff (2019)