Dubbed "the French Eminem," rapper Sinik was born Thomas Idir in Paris on June 26, 1980. Born to a family heralding from Algeria's mountainous Kabylie region, he survived a troubled youth marked by several prison stints by channeling his anger into hip-hop, and at age 14 befriended another aspiring rapper, Mélanie Georgiades, better known by her stage alias Diam's. In 1996 Idir co-founded the group L'Amalgave with friends Agoudjil Djamel, Oudjehih Anis, and Lalmi Tarek. Later renamed Ul'Team Atom, the lineup splintered after a series of mixtape appearances, and in 2000 the fir...