The French vocalist David Koven was born as "David Cohen" in Oujda, Morocco, on December 30, 1955. His music proved to be as diverse as his upbringing, with Koven creating a uniquely genre-jumping sound influenced by Brazilian music, soul, funk, Latin American music, and pop. His debut album, Jade, was released in 1983 and featured the singles "Samba Maria" and "Charlie Turquoise." Albums like Été Torride (1985) and Soul (1988) followed, and Koven enjoyed a resurgence of success on the French charts during the late-1980s with the single "Marvin," which found him paying tribute to the soul singer Marvin Gaye. The self-titled album David Koven was released in 1991 and marked his final album for the Polydor label. After signing with EMI France, Koven continued to blur the boundaries between genres with another string of releases, exploring his pop/rock influences with 1993's Changer d'Air before adopting a more jazz-oriented sound for 1996's gold-certified Nouveau Monde. He relocated to Los Angeles during the second half of the 1990s and released the most collaborative album of his career, 1997's Double Dave, which featured duets with fellow songwriter David Cochran. Although a motorcycle accident temporarily sidelined his career in 2007, Koven recovered and released Jazz Mood in 2012.
