Francky Vincent

Franck Joseph "Francky" Vincent (born 18 April 1956) is a French singer, songwriter, record producer, painter, talent manager and musician from Guadeloupe.

Francky Vincent was born on 18 April 1956 in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, to a modest family, an engineer father and a mother embroiderer. After a difficult childhood in red light districts of his native city, he abandoned his studies at two months of the bachelor to occupy the post of Clerical Officer in the service of social security registration of Pointe-à-Pitre, where there is dismissed after six months. In 1976 he left to do his military service in Guyana and came home the following year and became head of a store selling spare parts for light aircraft in Raizet.

In 1975, he joined a small, suburban compas group called Taboo No. 2 as a percussionist, and he traveled Guadeloupe with his bandmates to host weddings and dances. He released two albums with them, Ambition et Ti Paulette.

Finally, he decided to go it alone and abandon Taboo No. 2 to write and compose obscene, even shocking songs. His first solo album, sold under the mantle, sold 50,000 copies.

Since the 1980s, Francky became known throughout the Caribbean community living in Paris or the Caribbean. Despite a ban on air (which ultimately turned out to be very good publicity), his music appealed to tourists.

In 1990, he decided to produce his own music and created Francky Vincent productions. He began to sing more in French in order to challenge the majors and to develop nationally. The following year, his album Alice ça Glisse was a hit in the West Indies and sold more than 50 000 copies. At this time, he appeared for the first time on stage in Paris Olympia. Following this, noting that the record companies still were not interested in him, he moved to Paris in February 1992.

Two years later, he signed a license agreement with Arcadi (now Wagram Music) and launched the famous compilation Fruit De La Passion (Vas-y Francky c'est bon) which was a huge success. The lead song was the hit of the summer, and the album had other popular songs like "Alice ça Glisse", "Le Tourment D'Amour", "Viens dans mon duplex". These songs were broadcast on radio and in nightclubs. The disc was ranked 17th in the Top Albums Ifop / SNEP for 13 weeks and sold over 200 000 copies, Francky was a guest on French television studios by Michel Drucker, Jean-Pierre Foucault, amongst others. He played Olympia once again and began touring with international success.

In 1996, his album Le Tombeur was little publicized, ranked 40th and remained two weeks in the Top Albums Ifop / SNEP. At this time, he lived between Baie-Mahault and Paris. His success continued with A La Folie in 1999, which included covering Kassav's song "Zouk la sé sel médikaman", and "Chanteur de Zouk Love", a song dedicated to all Zouk Love singers, using absurd lyrics and comical themes.