Booba

Booba has a total of eight gold discs, five platinum discs and three double platinum discs. He holds the record for mixtape sales in France, with Autopsie Vol. 3 and Autopsie Vol. 4, and with Ali, and within the group Lunatic, Booba is the first French singer of all time to obtain a gold record with a totally independent label, for the album Mauvais œil. It also holds the sales record for a new edition, Futur 2.0 having sold 19,000 copies in a single week. It broke the French record for digital sales, all musical categories combined, with more than 15,500 copies in a single week, dethroned since 2013 by Daft Punk.

His Killer clip was voted second best web clip of the year 2011. He also won "MyYoutube", a competition organized by YouTube involving 38 French and international artists.

In 2002, Booba released his debut solo album Temps mort. He followed this up with four further albums: Panthéon, Ouest Side (the most successful), 0.9 and Lunatic. In late 2012, he released his sixth solo album Futur. In whole, Booba has ten disks certified, six Disques d'Or (Gold album), three Disques de platine (Platinum album) and one Double disque de platine (Double-Platinum album). In 2011, Booba won the "My Youtube" contest, ahead of popular artists like Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Eminem, Jay-Z, Sexion D'Assaut, Shakira, Stromae,...

With his friend Ali they formed the duo Lunatic in 1994. Unable to secure a record deal from a major label because of their controversial lyrics, they created their own independent record label 45 Scientific in 1999. The following year, Lunatic released its first and only album entitled Mauvais œil.

Booba was influenced by the American hip-hop scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s--Mobb Deep, Wu-Tang Clan, 2Pac, and Biggie Smalls. Dark melodies accompanied with raw lyrics, typical of the rap from New York, are present on every album of his. He is often criticized for being an apologist for easy money and murder. Booba advocates a reduction in the taxes and claims himself in support of individual freedom. Racism is a recurring topic of his songs (see for example "Couleur ébène", "Pitbull", "Ma Couleur"), although he sometimes deliberately advocates communitarian positions.

Élie Yaffa (French pronunciation: ​[eli jafa] ; born December 9, 1976), better known under his stage name Booba, is a French rapper. After a brief stint as a break dancer in the early 1990s, Booba partnered with his friend Ali to form Lunatic. The duo released a critically acclaimed album in 2000 but disbanded in 2003. Booba has since embarked on a successful solo career, selling more than 10 million discs over his career and becoming the most legally downloaded artist in French history. Booba is praised for the quality of his flow and beats but often criticized because of the controversial nature of his lyrics. He has also established the rap label Tallac Records, and developed a line of jewellery.

Élie Yaffa was born on December 9, 1976, in the outskirts of Paris in Sèvres. His father is Senegalese and his mother is French of Mosellan and Belgian descent.