History
The band was formed in late 1985 by Akhenaton and Khéops, under the name Lively Crew. Lively Crew became B.Boys Stance in the summer of 1987, after which it was joined by Shurik'n, Freeman and Imhotep. In 1989 the group was renamed IAM, and they produced their first album, IAM Concept which was released the following year. They signed a contract with Virgin Records, and went on to publish the album ...de la planète Mars (1991), which became a major hit in France. In 1993 they released another album titled "Ombre est lumière" that helped the band to grow in popularity. However, IAM's big break did not come until their 1997 album L'école du micro d'argent, which took only two days to become a gold album in France and eventually sold over a million copies, becoming a diamond album. L'école du micro d'argent also brought the group some international fame. They also performed at the Reading Festival in England which increased not only their own popularity but that of French Hip Hop in England.
After the massively successful 1997 album, members of the group began to pursue solo careers. Akhenaton had already produced his first solo album, Métèque et mat, in 1995, and he was followed by Shurik'n and Freeman with albums in 1998 and 1999 respectively. Most members of the band now started to work on other projects of their own as well, such as Akhenaton's 2000 film Comme un aimant and three solo albums Sol Invictus (2001), Black album (2002) and Soldat de fortune (2006). However, the group remained intact, writing tracks for their album Revoir un printemps, completed in 2003. The group released its most recent album Saison 5, in April 2007.
Read more about this topic: IAM (band)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)