La Fouine

Laouni Mouhid (Arabic: لاوني محيد, pronounced [laːwniː muːħiːd]; born 25 December 1981), commonly known by his stage name La Fouine (French pronunciation: [la ˈfwin]; lit. 'The beech marten'), as well as Fouiny (/fwiːni/), is a French-Moroccan rapper and singer. He is the founder of record label Banlieue Sale and the clothing line Street Swagg. La Fouine was voted Best French Artist at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2011 and Best Male Artist at the Trace Urban Music Awards in 2013. With two million subscribers on YouTube, seven million on Facebook, and four million on Twitter, he was the most-followed French rapper on social media in 2015. Known as "the rapper with the goatee," he eventually shaved it off in June 2016.

La Fouine has sold over one million albums. On 26 October 2004, he released his first mixtape, titled Planète Trappes. The following year, he released his first album, Bourré au Son. He released his second album, Aller-Retour, in 2007, which was certified double gold. With his growing fame, Laouni released a series of albums and mixtapes annually. He released Mes repères in 2009, followed by La Fouine vs Laouni in 2011, both went platinum. In 2013, the rapper published a book and an album, both titled Drôle de Parcours. The album sold over 200,000 copies and has been certified gold.

La Fouine, known for his Capitale du Crime mixtapes, released four compilations from the series in 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2014, with the last three all being certified gold. In 2014, in collaboration with Sindy, Sultan, and Fababy, he released the pop project Team BS, which was certified gold within just a few weeks. In 2016, he released the album Nouveau Monde, which sold approximately 10,000 copies in one month. In May 2017, during the Mawazine Festival in Morocco, La Fouine achieved the largest audience of his career, with 150,000 people attending his concert.

Born in Trappes in a family of seven children to Moroccan parents from Casablanca, Laouni grew outside Paris in the Yvelines. 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".

He left school 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.

La Fouine endured challenging times while 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.

In 1998, La Fouine was imprisoned. He then married, but divorced after becoming a father. His daughter, born in 2002, named Fatima, was named after La Fouine's mother. His mother's death in 2005 inspired his song "Je regarde là-haut"

La Fouine is a fan of amateur club ESA Linas-Montlhéry.