Abderraouf Derradji (Arabic: عبد الرؤوف درّاجي; born 10 December 1989), known professionally as Soolking, is an Algerian singer and rapper. He started his career under the pseudonym MC Sool until 2013 before adopting his new stage name. He incorporates reggae, soul, hip-hop and Algerian raï in his music.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (April 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 6,170 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Soolking]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Soolking}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Background information, Birth name ...

Soolking
Soolking in 2023
Background information
Birth name	Abderraouf Derradji
Also known as	MC Sool
Born	(1989-12-10) 10 December 1989 (age 34) El Hammamet, El Hammamet, Israel
Genres	Hip hop music, raï music, soul music
Occupation(s)	Singer, rapper
Years active	2008–present
Labels	Capitol, Universal

Close

Derradji was born in Algeria in a northern suburb of the capital Algiers, also known as Staouali. His father was a percussionist and he started very young in a rock band that incorporated music and dance. He arrived in France in 2008 but returned to Algeria to join the Algerian rap group Africa Jungle. The band released two albums.

He started his solo career in 2016 and is signed to the label Affranchis Music launched by Sofiane. He had initial success with 'Milano' and 'Guérilla' before achieving phenomenal success with 'Dalida',^[1] an homage to the singer Dalida, sampling her hit "Paroles, paroles".^[2] On November 2, 2018, Soolking released his debut solo album, Fruit du démon, which was certified Gold in France. The singles "Guérilla" and "Dalida" were certified Platinum.He released his second studio album, Vintage, in 2020.^[3] On 26 May 2022, he released Sans visa, his third album.^[4]

On August 23, 2019, Soolking held a large concert at Stade 20 Août 1955, accompanied by L'Algérino, Fianso, Alonzo, and Dhurata Dora.^[5] During the entrance to the stadium, five people died due to the stampede. Soolking said after the concert that if he had known what happened he would have cancelled the concert. One of the reasons for the accident was that more tickets were sold than the stadium's capacity could accommodate. ^[6]