Biography
Bushido (whose real name is Anis Mohamed Youssef Ferchichi), born September 28, 1978, in Bonn as the son of a Tunisian father and a German mother, grew up in Berlin, dropped out of high school after the 11th grade, and already got in trouble with the law as a teenager for narcotics offences and criminal property damage. Eventually, a juvenile magistrate gave him the choice to either start a government-sponsored apprenticeship as a painter and varnisher or to serve a prison sentence. Bushido (whose artist name derives from the Japanese language and means "way of the warrior") decided to start the apprenticeship. In the course of the apprenticeship, he also met his later collaboration partner Fler.
Bushido joined the hip hop and rap music scene via the graffiti sprayer scene. For a time, he was a member of the graffiti sprayer scene and named himself "Fuchs" ("Fox"). After his first musical steps and the release of the albums "King of Kingz" (2001) and "Carlo, Cokxxx, Nutten" (2002, under the artist name "Sonny Black"), Bushido released his first official solo album in 2003: "Vom Bordstein bis zur Skyline" caused a stir in the music scene because of its dark lyrics and its hard sound. The album reached number 88 in the German album charts. One year later, Bushido released his second solo album "Electro Ghetto" that even reached number six in the album charts. His following studio albums "Staatsfeind Nr. 1" (2005), "Von der Skyline zum Bordstein zurück" (2006), "7", (2007), and "Heavy Metal Payback" (2008) sold very well and also caused heavy controversies because of its provocative lyrics: Critics and people concerned with youth protection accused Bushido of propagating sexism, homophobia, and racism with his song lyrics – accusations that Bushido has always denied. Furthermore, several other musicians have repeatedly accused him of copyright infringements and Bushido was sentenced to pay compensation in at least one case.
Despite all these controversies, Bushido became enormously popular with mainly teenage audiences and developed some sort of a cult following precisely because of his coarse lyrics. Over the years, Bushido won countless music awards, including two Bravo "Ottos" (2005 and 2007), altogether four Echo Awards (2006, 2007, and 2008), two MTV Europe Music Awards (2006, 2007), and three Juice Awards (2005, 2006, and 2008) that are awarded by the Hip Hop magazine of the same name. Bushido’s meteoric, quite storybook-like rise from the ghetto kid to the musician who sells millions of records eventually called the attention of film producer Bernd Eichinger: He produced a biopic about the rapper under the title "Zeiten ändern Dich" that was directed by Uli Edel. At this point in time, Bushido was just 31 years old. He played himself in the movie.