International audience
Khaled's signature song, the 1993 hit "Didi", became extremely popular in the Arabic-speaking countries and also in several other continents, including Europe, where it entered top charts in France, Belgium and Spain, and in Asia, including India and Pakistan. The song was also used in a Bollywood film titled Shreeman Aashiq. Khaled and producer Don Was appeared on the The Tonight Show on 4 February 1993. The latter track, which saw heavy rotation on MTV Europe and climbed to fourth on the charts in Germany, The Legendary King of Rai, Cheb Khaled is a winner of many prestigious awards, and has sold over 80.5 million albums worldwide including 10 diamond, platinum, and gold albums. In 2010 he performed Didi at the opening ceremony of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, making him one of the best selling Arabic language artists of all time.
In 2012 Khaled’s album C’est la vie sold over one million copies in the European market alone after only two months and sold 1.8 million copies in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as 200,000 in the United States, for an estimated 3.6 million worldwide sales. With a record million downloads of the hit single "C'est la vie" on European and Canadian iTunes, the album reached number 5 on the Billboard top France Songs. The album contains a message of tolerance, love and peace, staying away from the themes of conflict that many other artists in the Arab world explore. Khaled tried to convey what Algerian immigrants suffer in Europe through the album and thinks that this is the reason behind the album's huge commercial success. C’est la vie was Khaled’s first album after a five-year break from recording during 2011 presidential elections in France and the Arab Spring.
