For months, he fought against the “influvoleurs”. Now he seems to want to set an example. The rapper Booba, long engaged in the fight against influencer abuseformalized this Thursday the creation of its own “talent” agency on social networks.
Entitled “Starting Blok”, the agency must bring together “urban talents”, from “stand-up, urban sports, graffiti, fashion, cinema”, indicates a press release on LinkedIn distributed by Claire Dabrowski, one of the founders of the company, who will work alongside Booba, and her manager, Anne Cibron.
“Starting Blok”, or “SBK”, will have the role of “promoting, supporting” and “developing the careers of talents by building their image and optimizing their projects”. Like many agencies in the sector, this new company will also manage partnerships between influencers and brands, on “responsible and creative influence operations”, ure its founders.
A charter of ethics and transparency
At this stage, the agency has not yet announced the names of the first influencers under its leadership. On his Instagram page, however, “SBK” already follows several BMX cyclists, skateboarders, parkour specialists, artists, as well as young comedians.
“The agency claims an ethical and transparent approach, and has created its own charter to which talents and partners adhere,” the press release continues. The message is clear: there is no question of joining the lineage influencers regularly pinned by Boobamost often from reality TV, and accused of multiple dubious promotions, even scams.
VIDEO. Booba indicted for “harment” against Magali Berdah
Since the summer of 2022, Booba has been waging a fierce digital war against the misdeeds of influencers. A war in which he took on Magali Berdah, founder of the influence agency Shauna Events, for main target. After a complaint was filed by the rapper, an investigation was opened against Shauna Events at the end of 2022, for “deceptive commercial practices”.
But for Magali Berdah, the war led by the rapper, real name Élie Yaffa, is more akin to cyberharment. Due to his repeated mocking tweets and publications, amplified by relays from hordes of fans and disgruntled Internet users, the latter was indicted for “harment”, beginning of October. He was also prohibited from having contact with the entrepreneur.