Booba

French hardcore rapper Booba entered the world as Elie Yaffa in Boulogne-Billancourt on September 9, 1976. He launched his hip-hop path in 1994 while adopting the alternate names B2O and B2OBA. Two years afterward he joined forces with Ali to establish both the collective Lunatic and the imprint 45 Scientific, which delivered the widely praised album Mauvais Oeil in 2000. Once Lunatic disbanded, Booba shifted focus to solo work and unveiled his first full-length project, Temps Mort, in 2002. The record’s strong sales and reviews secured him a deal with Universal, paving the way for the 2004 release Panthéon that marked his commercial ascent. The following year he appeared on the song “Top of the Game” alongside San Antonio Spurs point guard and French native Tony Parker, continuing a pattern of NBA players venturing into rap. In 2006 his third studio effort, Ouest Side, debuted at the summit of the French charts, though the achievement was overshadowed when his mother and brother were abducted; authorities recovered the pair and detained the perpetrators before any portion of the €500,000 ransom could be paid.

Alongside a string of “mixtape” projects, Booba issued two further official albums in the ensuing period—0.9 in 2008 and Lunatic in 2010. Neither matched the impact of Ouest Side, yet the latter, seemingly nodding to his former group, reached the top spot in Belgium. Tragedy struck again in 2011 with the passing of Bram’s, a close friend who had featured on every one of Booba’s records up to that point. He continued working nonetheless and completed the album Futur, which arrived in 2012.