Real name Othmane Berroho, Belgian-Moroccan pop-raï singer Cheb Rayan was born on February 18, 1980 in Mssalah, a working-class neighborhood northwest of Tangier (Morocco). The youngest of six children, he developed a passion for music at an early age, admiring role models such as Hasni and Oum Kalthoum. He left school at the age of 14 to devote himself to music, hosting numerous weddings. At the age of 23, he moved to Europe, first to Copenhagen (Denmark), then to Brussels (Belgium), where he recorded his debut album Rayan Chante Hasni in 2003. Comparisons with Cheb Hasni soon flourished, and Cheb Rayan was soon seen as the successor to the ambassador of sentimental raï, who was shot dead in 1994. Singing in both Arabic and French, he succeeded in mixing all forms of Arab music, from the Mashreq to the Maghreb, and released a number of albums, including El Babour Kalae Mel Port in 2012 and Waâra Dik El Bayda in 2015, as well as singles, such as "Netfekar le passé" in 2014, "Welat Agressive" and "La Vida Loca " in 2018, "Paranoia" in 2020 and "La Folie " in 2023. In 2022, the compilation Engagement is released.
