French The Kid

This bilingual U.K. rapper was raised in Toulouse, France, but born in Harold Hill, Romford, an area of east London traditionally and culturally known as part of Essex. After a prolific run of singles -- beginning with the self-released 2019 track, "Bella Latina" -- French the Kid's debut mixtape, Never Been Ordinary, hit the Top 30 of the U.K. album charts in April 2022.Music was part of his life from an early age, with his Irish mother regularly playing the guitar and other instruments in their household. She also introduced him to many genres, including traditional Irish folk, classic rock, reggae, and soul. His brother -- later to become a recording artist under the moniker Silky -- ultimately inspired him to rap. After the family relocated to Toulouse in southwest France in 2009 to follow his stepfather's work, his interest in rap was reinforced on hearing French-language acts such as PNL. As he approached his end-of-school exams, his mother gave him an ultimatum: pass them and return to live with his father in England or fail and join the army. He succeeded in getting a ticket back to his birthplace, but, due to a clash of personalities with his father, he ended up moving in with a friend in southeast London who had recently started a course at the University of Greenwich. It was there, in around 2018 -- alongside jobs on construction sites and in air-conditioning maintenance -- that he started to develop his flow. Compared to his mother and brother, French the Kid was a late starter in music, but relative success came to him early. After experimenting and uploading early efforts online, his first proper single, October 2019's bilingual "Bella Latina," went viral.By the following year, he was releasing music on Dropout UK, a small label and management group set up specifically for him. It took some reassurance from Dropout for French the Kid to continue to release bilingual material, but when he did, it marked him out among his contemporaries. After a straight run of three 2020 English-language singles -- "Only One Freestyle," "Dream," and "Broken Lives & Stolen Peds" -- he began to add French lyrics back into the mix. These featured on his August collaboration with Kenny Allstar, the Mixtape Madness-issued "Mad About Bars" and October's "Broke Toys." Early 2021 brought freestyle tracks for GRM Daily, as well as a feature on a remix of his brother's single "Playing Games." A measure of how far his star had risen came later in the year when his solo singles "Can't Feel My Face" and "Thrill" both graced the U.K. Top 100. He made a guest appearance alongside the R&B group M.O. on "U No," then on a garage track from Jodapac, and he closed the year with his own characteristically biographical "Uptown." After a March 2022 freestyle appearance with Fumez the Engineer on Relxvant's "Plugged In, Pts. 1-2," a distribution deal with Virgin helped Never Been Ordinary break into the upper reaches of the U.K. charts.
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