Who is Koba LaD? All about the rapper as he gets jailed over a fatal car crash

Marcel Junior Loutarila, better known as Koba LaD, is one of the most downloaded rap artists in France.

He grew up in Évry-Courcouronnes, which is south of Paris. Koba LaD has received several platinum awards and has millions of admirers due to his well-known, honest songs and stories about life on the street.

The rapper had a horrible car accident in September 2024. He was sentenced to six years in prison on charges of gross manslaughter on June 25, 2025.

Details about French rap artist Koba LaD

Loutarila, who was born in Evry, Essonne, on April 3, 2000, took up the nickname "Koba LaD" about the rebellious ape Koba from La Planète des singes ("Planet of the Apes"), with "LaD" standing for "la da," a colloquial validation of his street cred.

He immediately garnered a significant amount of attention and a sizable fan base when he uploaded freestyles to YouTube in 2018. His first mixtape, "VII", which included staccato words and minimal sounds, was well received by French rap fans and critics. Within two months of its release, his first album, "Détail", went gold and peaked at number two on the French Albums Chart.

He gained even more recognition for fusing gangster rap with soft tunes when he collaborated with well-known artists like Sadek and SCH. He had three platinum albums, one gold album, and forty gold singles in France, as well as one diamond-certified single by the middle of 2024.

On September 14, 2024, the 25-year-old rapper was attempting to leave a petrol station in Créteil, a neighborhood southeast of Paris, in a rented luxury sports car. According to the court document, he killed his stylist in a high-speed crash with a stopped delivery truck and injured his stylist's girlfriend, who was sitting in the back.

The investigation found that the car was driving way faster than the speed limit for the area around the fueling station. According to a toxicology analysis, the court found it aggravating that Koba LaD had cannabis in his system at the time of the collision. Emergency workers at the site said the stylist was dead, and then the rapper was taken into jail by the police.

The trial of Koba LaD began on June 25, 2025, in the Correctional Court of Créteil. He accepted full responsibility and said that he was "at fault, from beginning to end" for the death of one of his best friends, expressing regret over the incident.

The court ruled that the rapper serve six years in prison for aggravated involuntary manslaughter. He immediately lost his driver's license and is prohibited from taking a test for at least 10 years. For three years, he has been restricted from communicating with the victim's family.

Earlier, in November 2020, the artist crashed a rented Porsche Macan into another vehicle, injuring a motorist. When he turned himself in a few days after his initial escape attempt, he was given six months in prison, community service, and a temporary suspension of his license.

In March 2024, police questioned him because he was assumed to have helped narcotics dealer Mohamed Amra escape from a French prison, which led to the deaths of two police officers.

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