I was in Marseille over the weekend and that’s where I first heard La Fonky Family for the first time late one evening in a bar du vin.

Also known as La Fonky or la FF, the French hip-hop crew was formed in 1994 by four neighbourhood friends in Marseille.

They are made up of four rappers, Le Rat Luciano, Menzo, Don Choa and Sat plus producer Pone, DJ Djel, dancer Blaze, singer Karima, Flex Nandell and manager Fafa.

They made their debut on the debut solo album of French rapper Akhenaton from pioneering Marseille collective IAM in 1995, featuring their signature tune Les Bad Boys De Marseille, followed by their own full-length debut – Si Dieu Veut – two years later.

After the departure of Karima, and a number of appearances with French hip-hop giants Art De Rue, FF’s second album came out in 2001 before they took a break to release solo work.

When they reconvened in 2006 to record a third album, Marginal Musique, it went straight to the top of the French charts.

The group’s wider breakthrough in France came in 1998 after they were invited to collaborate with Akhenaton on the soundtrack of Luc Besson’s film Taxi. The film became a huge success and its soundtrack topped the French charts.

The collective’s members have different racial origins: three of them are of Algerian descent while Le Rat Luciano (real name Christophe Carmona) has a Spanish father and a mother from Martinique.