Riff Cohen

Riff Cohen was born in 1984 in Tel Aviv

Riff Cohen was born in Tel Aviv in 1984 to Patricia and Israel Cohen. Her father's family came from Djerba in Tunisia, and her mother was born in Tlemcen, Algeria, and grew up in Nice, France. Her parents ran an art gallery in Tel Aviv, and she is the eldest of three children.

She studied piano and dance from age 4 and wrote her first song at age 8. She finished Alon High School in Ramat HaSharon in the music track. After she did not pass the auditions for a military band, the IDF waived her enlistment, and she studied musicology at Tel Aviv University from 2003 to 2005.

In 2005 she began writing songs with her mother, who writes the French lyrics. From 2008 to 2010 she lived in Paris after receiving an artist residency. Her single "A Paris" came out in 2011, and her debut album of the same name followed in 2012.

In 2012 she opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Tel Aviv, signed with AZ Records and acted in the film A Bottle in the Gaza Sea. She received the ACUM breakthrough artist award in 2013. Her music mixes Middle Eastern rock, North African folk and raï.