Real name Ben Bouchta Mohammed, Moroccan rapper Shams Dinn was born in Morocco in the 1960s, where he spent his childhood at his grandfather's side, having never known his father, who died before his birth. He was only ten years old when he moved to Lyon, France, with his mother, and discovered a burgeoning underground hip hop scene. At the time, it went hand in hand with the discovery of martial arts, graffiti and breakdancing. In his late teens, he decided to move to Paris, where he hoped to expand his network and launch his own business. There he met Sidney, one of France's first hip-hop media personalities and host of the first TV show devoted entirely to hip-hop. Sidney offered him his first opportunity by handing him the microphone. From that moment on, he was convinced that he could make a career rapping in Arabic, and opted for the pseudonym Shams Dinn, which, when pronounced quickly, makes one think of "James Dean". He then took to the freestyle scenes of the French capital, where he built up his experience. He eventually teamed up with Jemel Dif and recorded his first single, "Hedi Bled Noum", which was a hit in 1987, enabling him to play in trendy clubs in Germany, Turkey and France. In the cities north of the Mediterranean, his notoriety soon grew, and he soon founded another group called Couscous Clan, a satirical name evoking the Ku Klux Klan. Although he was working on a solo album in the late 1980s, no label was willing to release a record in Arabic because of the Gulf War. When asked to rework his songs in French, Shams Dinn refused, and the album was never released. With the support of archives, a first eponymous album was assembled in 2019, testifying to Shams Dinn's pioneering status and featuring tracks such as "Hedi Bled Noum", "Vieille France" and "Rai Al Mal Boule".
