Paul Van Haver, better known as Stromae (stʁɔmaj) (born 12 March 1985) is a Belgian singer-songwriter. He has established himself in both hip hop and electronic music genres. Stromae came to wide public attention with his song "Alors on danse", which became a number one in several European countries. Van Haver was born in Brussels to a Rwandan father and a Flemish mother. His father was mostly absent during his childhood and was killed during the 1994 Tutsi Genocide. His mother raised him in a French community in the suburbs of Brussels. At the age of eleven Paul Van Haver already showed an interest in music and attended the Académie musicale de Jette, where he studied music history and learned to play the drums. This was his first experience with musical theory. In 2000 he appeared as a rapper called Opmaestro, though he later changed his stage name to Stromae (a syllablic inversion of "Maestro", a practice called verlan). At the age of 18, he founded a rap group called "Suspicion"...