Who Is Marie Pierra Kakoma? Unraveling the Belgian-Congolese Artist’s Journey

Lous and the Yakuza ( stage name Marie-Pierra Kakoma) is a Belgian-Congolese singer, songwriter , rapper and model born on May 26, 1996 in Lubumbashi ( Congo ).

She became known after the release of her first single Dilemme in September 2019, followed by Tout est gore in December 2019and Solo in March 2020. His debut album, Gore , produced by El Guincho , was released on October 16, 2020.

Lous is an anagram of Soul and Yakuza refers to all those who work for her, whether on stage or behind the scenes.

Biography

Family and childhood

Lous was born Marie-Pierra Kakoma on May 26, 1996 in Lubumbashi in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo ). Her parents were doctors there. Her Congolese father was a gynecologist and her Rwandan mother was a pediatrician. His mother was imprisoned in the Congo for two months during the Second Congo War in 1998 because of her ethnicity. After her father obtained her release, she fled to Belgium with one of Kakoma’s sisters. Marie-Pierra Kakoma and the rest of her siblings joined their mother in Belgium two years later, in 2000, while their father remained in Congo. The family moved to Rwanda in 2005, before returning permanently to Brussels in 2011.

Lous was immersed from an early age in a musical environment due to her father’s interest in European classical works by Mozart , Chopin , Vivaldi and Beethoven . She began composing her own music at the age of seven. When his family moved to Belgium at the age of 15, he began emailing Columbia Records in hopes of signing with the label. At the age of eighteen, Kakoma leaves the family home at the age of nineteen. In the period of homelessness that followed, he lived on the streets for several months before moving into a music studio, where he slept and recorded music, while moving between various service jobs. In three years, Kakoma recorded 52 songs, including seven EPs . In 2016, he appeared in the clip BruxellesVie by Belgian artist Damso.

Musical career

Marie-Pierra Kakoma adopted the stage name Lous and Yakuza from an anagram of soul , the source of her musical inspiration, and Yakuza , the Japanese organized crime syndicate, whose name she uses to describe her “team” of collaborators she relies on to create her music. His publisher, Miguel Fernandez, spotted Lous on the Internet. As of 2017, his passion finds its culmination in the creation of an album. Lous recruited many of his family members to form a backing band and started performing in bars and clubs in the underground culture of Brussels. In late 2017, she was invited to form an acoustic ensemble for La ChillZone , after which she signed, at the age of 22, to Columbia Records through Sony Music in France. On June 15, 2018, Le Ridicule ne tue , a collaboration between Lous and the Yakuza and the French electronic group BSSMNT, was released.

For six months, Lous searched for a producer who matched his aspirations. It is the Spanish El Guincho , who draws his attention for his work on Rosalía’s single Malamente . He produced with Ponko the first single of Lous, Dilemme , released on September 19, 2019. With over ten million streams on Spotify , 3.8 million views on YouTube and topping Spotify Italia’s Viral 50 list, the song propelled Kakoma to the forefront. The song’s music video, directed by Wendy Morgan, highlights Lous’ distinct identities, between his life in the Congo and in Belgium. A remix starring Italian rapper Tha Supreme and Italian singer Mara Sattei was released on April 1 st, 2020. At the 2019 Red Bull Elektropedia Awards, Lous and the Yakuza won the silver medal in the “Fresh on the Scene” category. Lous’ second single, Tout est gore , also produced by El Guincho, was released on December 6, 2019. The song gained popularity after actress Issa Rae shared a clip of the video on social media. On March20, 2020, Lous is releasing his third single, Solo , with an accompanying music video directed by Wendy Morgan and Kevin Bago. An associated short documentary, titled Solo (Genesis) was released on April14, 2020. All three singles will be included on their debut album, Gore , produced by El Guincho. Its release, initially scheduled for June 5, 2020, has been postponed to fall 2020 due to the pandemic.

In March 2020, Lous and the Yakuza joined Spotify’s “RADAR” initiative, which aims to expand the reputation of artists with international reach by communicating them through the American music selection “On Our RADAR” and on Spotify’s social networks. That same year she declared to Vanity Fair France to have been marked by songs by artists such as Barbara , Billy Joel , Ismaël Lô , Loredana Bertè and Kate Bush . She specifies that she was inspired by the latter for the music video Amigo.

Lous’s music has been described as a “silky” combination of trap , R&B and pop.

Modeling
On February 27, 2020 , Lous modeled for the French luxury ready-to-wear house Chloé during Paris Fashion Week , where she participated in the fashion show of its autumn-winter 2020-2021 collection.

Translation
In February 2021, Fayard Edition announced that it had to translate the work The Hill We Climb and Other Poems by American poet Amanda Gorman.

Image
Lous’s image is inseparable from the graphic symbol painted on his forehead, a sort of “Y” with a dot in the middle. This tattoo, titled “Hands Raised to the Sky” stylized, represents two arms connecting the earth to the sky. Her style was inspired by other artists such as FKA Twigs and Erykah Badu.

Personal life
In addition to music and fashion, Lous is dedicated to painting and interior design.

After the death of George Floyd , he joined Black Lives Matter Belgium to convene a protest in Brussels.June 2020.