MC Rai was born in 1977 in the southern Tunisian city of Gabes. As a youth he was immersed in the folk music traditions of chabi, or mizoued, as it is known in Tunisia. At the age of eight he was performing live on the local radio station. In 1995, he began to turn his attention from chabi to rai music, and realized that he could develop a style of rai distinct from that emanating from Algeria, and infuse it with the traits of his Tunisian music.

While many of his contemporaries such as rai singers Faudel, Sawt-el Atlas and Abdu relocated to France to garner an international audience, MC Rai chose instead to move to San Francisco in 2000. He has performed with well-known rai musician Khaled, and appeared on stage with artists such as Bonnie Raitt and Joan Baez. MC RAI appears in the soundtrack to the movie Rendition and released his album Raivolution in 2006 on Embarka Records. Currently based in Los Angeles, MC Rai is in the studio working on his latest work De Gabes a Los Angeles to be released in July of 2008.