La Fouine

Biography

Born in Trappes in a family of seven children to Moroccan parents from Casablanca, Laouni grew outside Paris in the Yvelines. He stopped his studies at the age of fifteen to devote himself to rap and took his first music lessons. La Fouine, who was called "Forcené" was an active member of the collective "GSP". It was part of the short-lived group "FORS" with DJ RV (Hervé), Le Griffon (Tarek Medimegh) And LaylaD (Layla Melloni Forcé), created mainly to participate at 2 R puissance ART in La Verrière, where he won the second prize.

Since then, Laouni married, then divorced after becoming the father of a little girl, born in 2002, named Fatima, named after La Fouine's mother . The death of his mother in 2005 inspired his song "Je regarde là-haut" He also experienced dark periods in foster homes and prisons. "I was only fifteen when I was expelled from school and placed in foster homes. I became an insomniac for most of the time. But it did not take me to sleep with me, if the cops were looking for me directly. I slept with people in cars, premises, etc.. It was misery", he said to the magazine Planète Rap.

2005: Bourré au Son

After releasing his first street-tape Planète Trappes that made him earn an early legitimacy in rap, he released his first album in 2005 called Bourré au Son strongly marked by the California style. The singles "L'unité" and "Quelque chose de spécial" meet critical acclaim and broadcast on many French radio stations.

2007: Aller-Retour

After putting out Planète Trappes Volume 2 on the market launching especially his brother Canardo through three titles, La Fouine released his second album entitled Aller-Retour on March 12, 2007. The first single from this album was "Reste en Chien" with Booba. The second single was titled "Qui peut me stopper" followed by "On s'en bas les couilles", "Banlieue Sale" with Gued'1 & Kennedy and "Tombé pour elle" with Amel Bent. Today, this album is certified gold.

2009: Mes Repères

After releasing the street-tape Capitale du Crime which highlights the rappers of Yvelines, the third album of the rapper Mes Repères released in February 2009 and received a gold disc certification in October 2009. It included three guest appearances especially with Soprano on "Repartir à zéro" and still with Soprano and Sefyu on "Ca fait mal (Remix)" and Canardo (his younger brother) on "Hamdoulah Moi Ca Va". Today, this album is certified platinum.

2010: Capitale du Crime Volume 2

The disk Capitale du Crime Volume 2 released on January 18, 2010, ranks third in the album sales in France in the first week of its release. On this album are collaborations with Canardo, Green Money, Kennedy, Vincenzo, Chabodo, A2P Rickwell, Gued'1...

In April 2010, La Fouine worked with Admiral T & Medine on the piece "Viser la Victoire", extract the Admiral-T's album entitled L'Instinct Admiral and so on Street Lourd II with the song "Dans nos quartiers" in collaboration with Alonzo and Teddy Corrona. Nowadays, this mixtape is certified gold.

2011: La Fouine vs Laouni

The first single from her double album La Fouine vs Laouni is "Passe-leur le salam" featuring Rohff. "Veni, vidi, vici" is the second single and the third extract "Caillera for Life" is a collaboration with California rapper The Game in which The Game tried performing in French. And the fourth from the album entitled "Papa" is a track where La Fouine speaks about his father. The fifth single was released on 21 January 2011 called "Les Soleils de Minuits".

La Fouine revealed the list of titles, but also the production of the album on 21 January 2011. The music is especially tracks with Street Fabulous, Animalsons, Dj E-Rise Skalp, etc., while his brother Canardo appears on the microphone on "Bafana Bafana (Remix)".

On 7 May 2011, La Fouine had a concert at the Zenith in Paris, That evening, he performed with Zaho the title "Quand ils vont partir". Moreover, some time after, Kamelancien signed with the label of La Fouine's managers "S-Kal Records". Other notable rappers followed such as Sultan.

La Fouine released a reissue of the album on June 15, 2011. While waiting his new mixtape Capital Crime Vol. III, La Fouine released a new edition of La Fouine vs Laouni entitled La Fouine et Laouni including twelve songs of his double album with an unpublished remix "Toute la night" produced by Majestic Drama and "Veni, vidi, vici" remixed by Dj Battle featuring Francisco. Today, this album is certified platinum.

2012: Capitale du Crime Volume 3

Capitale du Crime Volume 3 was released on 28 November 2011. It contained many guest appearances with American stars such as T-Pain on "Rollin' Like a Boss", DJ Khaled at production on "VNTM.com" and Ace Hood on "T'es mort dans le film". The mixtape sold over 62,000 copies until March 2012 and was certified gold. Meanwhile, he joined the group Trappes Stars created by his former manager Bodé. Trappes Stars was composed of some rappers of Trappes region such as Canardo, Green, MAS, Chabodo, Gued'1 or the A2P. All gathered on a compilation mixed by DJ Battle.

2013: Drôle de Parcours

On 10 September 2012, La Fouine revealed on social networks the title of his new album entitled Drôle de Parcours. The first single from the album was "Paname Boss" and released on November 2, 2012. This single featured Sniper, Niro, Youssoupha, Canardo, Fababy and Sultan. November 6, 2012, La Fouine released the second single from Drôle de Parcours called "J'avais pas les mots". The third single is "Ma Meilleure" in featuring Zaho. 60,000 copies of the album were sold and the album was certified gold.

2014: Team BS

Team BS is a project and a hip hop collective of La Fouine launched in 2013, and an initiative of his record label Banlieue Sale, "BS" denoting actually the record label they work in. Collective Team BS is a collaboration of Banlieue Sale acts La Fouine, Fababy, Sultan and the vocalist Sindy the latter from the French television series Popstars where la Fouine was one of the judges. Also included in the collective is the French producer Pascal Lemaire known as DJ Skalp / Skalpovich.

In 2013, the collective Team BS had a debuting charting success with the self-titled single "Team BS" (alternatively known as "Vrai frères"). The release was accompanied by a music video. In January 2014, Team BS came up with a follow-up single "Case départ". It is working on an album to be released in 2014 under the title Les affaires commencent.

The clash with Kamelancien

Early 2005, La Fouine responded with his title "Ferme ta gueule" to Kamelancien who attacked him as "twisted face" in the song "Reste vrai". Kamelancien soon turned up with his new response titled "Crise Cardiaque" and openly threatened him on a TV programe. This clash between the two Moroccan rappers, was a sort of clash with completely different style, one from Oujda and representing the Val-de-Marne and the other a native of Casablanca, representing the Yvelines. In 2011 the two rappers were reconciled and performed the song "Vécu" seen over 16 million times on YouTube. On 7 May 2011, La Fouine invited Kamelancien to his concert at the Zenith in Paris to officially end their clash.

The clash with Booba

Attacked by Booba, during the promotion of his album Futur according to him La Fouine "clashed" him on "Paname Boss" with a punchline. While his album had been released quite a few months, Booba insisted on releasing the song "AC Milan", where he attacked La Fouine calling him a pedophile, calling Emile Louis Laounizi (referring to Emile Louis) and diffusing an extract of a video where the criminal record of La Fouine is revealed.

La Fouine chose "Autopsie 5" to answer back (Autopsie is the name of mixtapes series of Booba). He chose to offer free the song explaining he did not want to make money on the clash. Thereafter, La Fouine and Booba released at the same time a second song "TLT" ("Tuez Les Tous" for Booba and "T'as La Tremblotte" for La Fouine) on their respective YouTube channels. La Fouine spoke mostly about Booba's photo that had circulated on the Internet, in parodying his music.

On March 10, 2013, Booba broadcast the video of their altercation that took place in Miami. The rapper 50 Cent put the video on his website. La Fouine replied "LOL! I just learned that the uncensored version of the altercation with b2obeatrice runs on the Net, I'll wait to find it to put the video of the altercation between him, Dixon (a friend of La Fouine) and Booba on Facebook. He highlighted passages that had been edited out by Booba where he runs away to escape La Fouine and Dixon. They nicknamed him Usain B2olt referring to Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt.

Relations and controversies

On May 8, 2011, in Belgium, at the Inc'Rock Festival, La Fouine spoke about an incident during his concert, where two young fans, thinking he had thrown plastic bottles at them with threatening words. La Fouine did not want to increase the tension by declaring: "Tonight, La Fouine, has come to give you love". Meanwhile, the entourage of the rapper were seen punching and beating up the two teenagers behind the scenes, with one of them falling to the ground. A policeman was also injured in the incident, while arresting the young man, mad with rage who wanted to retaliate taking revenge against La Fouine. The scene was filmed by a spectator. The festival organization condemned the outbreak of violence, blaming the artist for his utterances. It was claimed the entourage La Fouine attempted to remove the videos of the incident from various websites where they appeared. During the promotion for his album Drôle de Parcours, he said do not want a repeat of such incidents during his concerts.

Personal life

La Fouine's mother was so poor, they had to frequent the Restaurants du Cœur charity eateries. In 1998, La Fouine was imprisoned. La Fouine was married to Fiona, but they divorced after having a daughter together born May 31, 2003, named Fatima in honor of his mother. He is the penultimate of his six brothers and sisters, Hakim (aka the rapper Canardo), Kamel, Illham, Samira, Naima and Adil. La Fouine talked about this in "Je regarde là-haut".

Banlieue Sale

In 2008, La Fouine and his brother Canardo decided to launch their own label called "Banlieue Sale". This independent label, forged a partnership with Sony-BMG, one of the biggest music labels in the world. Banlieue Sale has subsidiaries that are "S-Kal Records" (created by the managers of La Fouine) and "Henijai Music" (created by Canardo).

In sum, a half-dozen artists have signed on Banlieue Sale including:

Albums and Mixtapes

( (A) denotes album, (M) denotes mixtape)

EP

Singles

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(Promotional)

Other singles

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Appearances in Music Videos

Filmography

Web Series