He is best known for his music, which is a blend of hip-hop and electronic music styles. Stromae came to wide public attention in with his song " Alors on danse " from the album Cheese , which became a number one in several European countries. On his absent father, he declared in , "My father was never there for me. He left right away.
He was a runner, a flirt. I learned much later that I had half-siblings. He was an architect who went back and forth between Belgium and Rwanda. I must have seen him twenty times in my life, and he died during the Rwandan genocide. But he had already disappeared for me, and when I learned of his death, I didn't cry. Perhaps I hadn't prepared myself. The fact remains that we won't be able to make up for lost time with this dad we didn't see when he was little.
His early influences included Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel , son cubano and Congolese rumba. In , Stromae appeared as a rapper called Opsmaestro, though he later changed his stage name to "Stromae", which comes from switching the syllables in the word " Maestro ". At the age of 18, he founded a rap group called "Suspicion", along with rapper "J. To finance his private school education, Van Haver worked part-time in the hospitality industry, but his academic performance was not up to standard.
In , during his studies at the film school of Brussels, Stromae decided to concentrate fully on his musical career. This resulted in his debut-EP "Juste un cerveau, un flow, un fond et un mic…". Vincent Verbelen, Music Manager, was impressed by the talent he perceived in Stromae's first single "Alors on danse" and decided to air it for the first time on NRJ.
He is one of the ten winners of the European Border Breakers Award On 9 February , his debut album Cheese including the hit single "Alors on danse" won the award for Best Dance Album at the Victoires de la musique. Stromae also announced he would perform as the opening support act for the first of two concerts by the band in Paris on 24 and 25 June at Stade de France.
