Ilyass Hasnaoui, more popularly known as ILYAH, is a Boston-based Moroccan performing artist whose multicultural upbringing permeates his sound with French, Arabic, and English influences. ILYAH began his career performing covers on YouTube where he garnered a small following. The support of his fans pushed him to break into the music scene.
After being admitted to American TV show and music competition, ‘The Voice,’ in 2018, ILYAH was recruited by Jeff Timmons to join, boyband, Overnight. ILYAH decided that it was best for him to forgo his televised music opportunity in favor of this new venture. Timmons is famous for founding the multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated, world-renowned group, 98 Degrees.
Timmons deliberated over thousands of internet submissions and auditions to carefully curate Overnight’s band members. Once selected, ILYAH flew to Las Vegas to live together with band members and spend the summer recording and learning choreography. Overnight brought the perfect blend of vocal talent, dancing ability, sex appeal, stage presence, and diversity to create an engaging, high energy, and nostalgic viewing experience.
Choreographed by entertainment industry staple David Mayorga (Daddy Yankee, AR Rahman, Cirque Du Soleil, Brooke Hogan), their performance brings a youthful freshness to classic hits from several eras of iconic pop music. Overnight performed classic hits from stars like New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, N*SYNC, O-Town, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, The Wanted, One Direction, and the Jackson 5 just to name a few.
ILYAH recently invited, Middle East TV host, Simo Benbachir, to be the guest star of his latest music video for his latest hit single, Habibi. Simo is none other than the first Moroccan TV reporter to cover Hollywood’s largest events like the Grammys and the Oscars. He’s most notable for interviewing well-known celebrities and delivering fresh perspectives and insightful commentary to his Arabic Audience.
Habibi, ILYAH’s 2020 debut solo single, was made possible by renowned producer Nadir Rhazi. Rhazi is known to those on the scene as Rhazi on Da Beat and he’s now ILYAH’s official producer thanks in great part to the coordination of his agent John Kemayi from Kemayi Management. Simo will grace Habibi with ILYAH’s catch phrase ‘Nayda Nayda’ which is best represented by its English slang counterpart, lit. Habibi takes place at The Royals Paris fashion house in Beverly Hills where we see Moroccan fashion designer Hicham Benslimane styling outfits for ILYAH. Habibi is a unique project in that no other Moroccan artist is currently using these sounds and visuals in the music scene; it’s confidently the first of ILYAH’s many successful projects that will follow.
