RedOne
Early life
RedOne was born as Nadir Khayat in Tétouan, Morocco. In an interview, he said he was the ninth and youngest child in his family. In 1991, he immigrated to Sweden when he was 19, to pursue a career as a musician. In an interview with HitQuarters website, he said his moving to Sweden was because, "there was so much good music coming from there" mentioning ABBA, Europe), and Roxette as among the most influential to him.
1991–2006: Career in Sweden
In 1995, he changed directions by opting to produce and write songs for other artists. Instrumental in helping him make this transition was Rami Yacoub, another fellow ex-rock musician. Yacoub, a Palestinian-Swedish songwriter/producer already enjoyed considerable success and was a well-established producer. Inviting RedOne to work with him in the studio, he taught RedOne about "programming and how the software works" and the pair co-wrote a number of songs together. During this period of cooperation, RedOne worked with the successful Swedish girl band Popsie writing their songs "Funky" and "Joyful Life" co-written and co-produced by Yacoub and RedOne (and where RedOne was credited on Popsie's 1998 self-titled album as songwriter and producer Nadir K). He chose the alias 'RedOne', a pseudonym of the name of a friend of his, Redouan. Redouan introduced Rami to Max Martin, Yacoub was asked some time later to join Cheiron Studios and the two parted company with Yacoub working extensively with huge names like Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Westlife and Céline Dion, amongst others.
1991–2006: Career in Sweden
RedOne then moved on to produce various Swedish and European pop acts. In 2001–2002, he co-produced ATeens, originally an ABBA teen tribute band that already had a huge hit with The ABBA Generation. RedOne co-produced two of their follow-up albums, Teen Spirit) in 2001 and Pop 'Til You Drop in 2002 with some original songs like "...to the Music", "Slam" co-written with Flame, Hortlund, and J. Boogie and "Singled Out" co-written with AJ Junior, Dhani, Sara, Savan Kotecha, and ShawnDark in a bid to launch them as "more than just a cover band".
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