Sliimy

Pronounced “slimmy,” not “slimy,” Sliimy serves as the stage name for singer and songwriter Yanis Sahraoui, who grew up in the French town of Saint-Etienne near Lyons. As a boy, Sahraoui earned the nickname Sliimy on account of his tall, slender frame. His mother sparked his early passion for pop by playing him records from Michael Jackson, Madonna, and the Bee Gees. After her death when he was seven, he turned frequently to music during solitary hours. Joining the local choir later supplied him with a solid grounding in gospel and soul. That background proved useful in 2005, when he entered a singing contest and delivered a performance of Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” claiming first prize in the form of studio time with producer Feed. The two clicked immediately, turning their partnership into a lasting one, and began uploading tracks to Sliimy’s MySpace page in 2007. Among those tracks was a radically reworked cover of Britney Spears’ “Womanizer,” which quickly gained widespread attention online. Impressed by the material, blogger Perez Hilton signed Sliimy and Feed as the first artists to his label, Perezicious Music, while Sliimy separately entered a publishing arrangement with Warner Chappell for releases in the U.K. His debut album, Paint Your Face, arrived in fall 2009.