Lil' Louis

Lil' Louis is the stage name of Marvin Louis Burns, born in Chicago in 1962 and long credited as a founding father of house music. Son of blues musician Bobby Sims, he began playing drums and bass as a child and was thrust into DJing at twelve, filling in at a party his mother organized to unite rival gangs. Through the 1980s and 1990s he scored several number-one hits on the US dance chart, most famously "French Kiss" (1989), whose extended tempo-collapsing breakdown became one of house music's most notorious productions, selling millions worldwide despite a BBC ban. The albums From the Mind of Lil Louis and Journey with the Lonely followed, and he later produced for artists like Jay-Z.