Francois Feldman

François Feldman is a French singer and songwriter, born on 23 May 1958. Of Russian descent through his father and Belgian through his mother, he grew up in the Paris suburbs in Clichy-sous-Bois, where his teenage years were shaped by the soul sounds of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and James Brown. He received his first guitar at fourteen, started performing very early, won radio talent contests, and formed his first amateur band.

His recording career began in 1977 with the 45 rpm single Comme une petite fille. In the early 1980s, meeting songwriter-composer Ernest Salfati steered his music toward a disco-funk style. He recorded with his band Yellow Hand and then as a solo artist, releasing tracks such as Ma petite vidéo (1982), Folle sur les bords (1983) and Amour de corridor (1985), without major success at first.

Fame arrived in autumn 1986 with the hit Rien que pour toi, which sold more than 300,000 copies. This breakthrough led to his first album, Vivre, vivre (1987), which went platinum. Driven by singles like Slave, Je te retrouverai and Le mal de toi, the album marked the start of a fruitful collaboration with lyricist Jean-Marie Moreau.

He reached the peak of his popularity in 1989 with his second album, Une présence, certified diamond (over one million copies sold). It featured a string of major hits: Joue pas (a duet with Joniece Jamison), Les Valses de Vienne (No. 1 for six weeks), C’est toi qui m’as fait, Petit Frank (No. 1 for three weeks) and J’ai peur, again a duet with Joniece Jamison.

His third album, Magic’ Boul’vard (1991), confirmed his status as a star of French pop. It spawned the successes Le serpent qui danse, Magic’ Boul’vard, Tombé d’amour and, above all, Joy, dedicated to his daughter, which stayed No. 1 on the Top 50 for eight weeks in 1992. François Feldman thus became the first singer to place three different singles at the top of that chart.

From 1993 and the release of the album Indigo, his career entered a more low-profile phase. The following albums, À contre-jour (1995), Couleurs d’origine (1997) and Des larmes et de l’amour (2004), received limited media and commercial attention. He nevertheless continued to perform live across France.

He reached a wide audience again by joining the RFM Party 80 tour from 2007 onward, an adventure adapted for the big screen in the films Stars 80 (2012) and Stars 80, la suite (2017), in which he plays himself. In 2018, he released the album Vivant, with funky and RnB sounds, followed in 2020 by a record with reggaeton and Latin influences, featuring the single Cordoba, a duet with singer Claudia.