Cheb Rabah (الشاب رابح), whose real name is Rabah Zerradine, is a singer and composer, born on September 25, 1962 in Algiers, Algeria.

Cheb Rabah was born in Algiers, his parents, originally from Belayel near Ighil Ali in the wilaya of Bejaïa, settled, a year after his birth, in Oran where he will complete his studies before stopping in the second year of secondary school. He turned to music by scouring the party halls and tourist complexes. After the troupe Les Dreams that he formed in the mid-70s and after the release of his first cassette in 1986.

After separating from his group, he recorded his first cassette in 19861. He also worked as a backing singer for another Raï singer, Cheb Mami. He stopped for three years before starting again and, until 1996, recorded 14 studio recordings on cassettes. He defined his style as a mix of Raï and Chaâbi Algérois. His father learned that his son was a singer three years before he died in 1991.

In 1990, Rabah emigrated to France and took on a series of odd jobs, and recorded sporadically in the studio. He was a hairdresser when he was hired as a singer on the soundtrack of the film Bab El-Oued City by Merzak Allouache, released in 1994. Rabah worked in a restaurant and was still waiting for his situation on French soil to be regularized when he recorded his last album entitled Ki Nkoune Maâk, produced by Dadouche and Rachid Bahri, more musically oriented towards world music, in December 1996. The same year, he took part in the soundtrack of Salut Cousin! by Merzak Allouache, directed by Safy Boutella.

In 1998, producer Saïd Dadouche produced a song with singers Cheb Rabah, Cheb Kouider Bensaïd and Cheb Tarik to glorify the French-Algerian Zinédine Zidane, who had just won the 1998 World Cup with the French national football team: "For Zidane," he explained, "you have to bring together three raï singers. One for each verse: in French, Arabic and Kabyle." which was ultimately never released due to a lack of authorization.

Then Cheb Rabah's trail was lost, gradually moving away from the music world, he lived between Tours and Paris.

Trial

Cheb Rabah accused Khaled of plagiarizing his song Angui ou Selmi for his hit Didi. At the end of the first trial, the Paris High Court had notably, on April 3, 2015, ordered Cheb Khaled to return to Cheb Rabah the royalties collected for the musical composition of the work "Didi", marketed from 1991, for its exploitation in the world, but for a period after June 2003 due to a partial limitation period. He had also been ordered to pay the plaintiff 100,000 euros in damages in compensation for his moral prejudice, and the same amount in compensation for the infringement of his moral rights as an author. Both had appealed. Khaled was finally acquitted in a judgment rendered on May 13, 2016, overturning the first judgment, considering that Cheb Rabah had not proven that his work, which for him was copied, was prior to "Didi".

In July 2015, Cheb Mami was convicted of plagiarism on 4 songs, including 3 from the 2001 album Dellali. The Paris High Court ordered the singer and the publishing company EMI to pay Cheb Rabah 200,000 euros for plagiarizing his lyrics. Mami was found guilty of reproducing, at least in part, the lyrics of songs written by Rabah Zerradine, aka Cheb Rabah, and "infringing on the latter's property rights." According to the court, Rabah Zerradine should be considered the sole author of the four songs Le Raï C'est Chic, Madanite, Ma Vie Deux Fois, Gualbi Gualbi and the co-author of the lyrics of Desert Rose, some of which had achieved worldwide success in the early 2000s.16 "It cannot be disputed that Rabah Zerradine lost a chance to gain significant notoriety due to the success of the songs that he had actually written," wrote the court, which ordered Cheb Mami and the company EMI to jointly pay him 100,000 euros in moral damages. They were also ordered to pay him 100,000 euros in compensation for the infringement of his moral rights as an author."