Detsl

The son of Russian media producer and creative director Alexandr Tolmatsky (born 12 May 1960), he was born in Moscow, graduated from the British International School and then studied in Switzerland where he was introduced to hip hop music by a roommate and decided to become a rapper himself.[4] Upon his return to Moscow, he launched his solo career under the guidance and mentorship of his father who co-produced his debut and a follow-up record. During that time, he also collaborated with the hip hop collective Bad Balance.

He made his debut on the Russian rap scene in 1999 under the stage name Detsl (a Russian slang word meaning 'a little, not much'[5] from English "that's all", the only way to pronounce it with sounds available in Russian), releasing a track Friday along with a music video. In 2000, he released his debut album Who? You to massive success and quickly became a teen idol of the early 2000s in Russia.[6][7] In 2001, his second album Street Fighter was released.[8] Having performed for three years as Detsl, he decided to distance himself from the early material, releasing his eponymous third record in 2004 as Le Truk. However, he returned to his previous stage name on the next two albums and used Detsl aka Le Truk moniker for all his releases starting from 2014.[9]

He died on 3 February 2019 in Izhevsk at the age of 35 from a sudden heart attack after performing his live set at a private birthday party.[3] Coincidentally, he entertained the idea of faking his own death and disappearing at exactly the same age in the 2007 and 2015 interviews to news media agencies before the concert in the same city he would actually die in.[10] The last post on Instagram was his own picture, written in oil on canvas, the inscription on it reads: “RIP RGB”, and in the caption to the work explanation: conspiracy theory collection. The farewell ceremony was held on February 6 in Moscow at the Central Clinical Hospital of the Office of the Presidential Affairs. Buried at the Pyatnitskoye Cemetery.

• Short biography (in Russian)

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