Valiant

Raheem Bowes, who performs as Valiant, is from the Mannings Hill area of Stony Hill in St. Andrew, Jamaica. Before pursuing music full-time he worked in Jamaica's business process outsourcing (BPO)/call-center industry. He began recording music around 2012 and spent nearly a decade working steadily but with limited mainstream traction, at one point affiliated with Popcaan's Unruly camp, before his breakthrough arrived.

His rise to wider fame came in late 2022, when a 12-second clip of him responding to a greeting with the ad-libbed phrase "Kotch e hat, rich a lie, Fada!" exploded on TikTok, earning him the nickname "Kotch E Hat Boss." He followed the viral moment with a run of singles — including "Dunce Cheque," "Siance," and "North Carolina" — that cemented him as one of 2022's defining dancehall breakout artists.

"Dunce Cheque" also became Valiant's most-discussed controversy: Jamaica's then-Minister with responsibility for information publicly criticized the song, arguing its lyrics glorified illiteracy and a lack of ambition. Valiant responded in interviews and with a follow-up track, "Scholar," defending the song as a way of giving young people who'd been called "dunce" the confidence to laugh it off. He signed with Epic/Sony Music UK and released the EP Prove Them Wrong, leaning into a trap-dancehall/R&B fusion sound featuring Fridayy and 450.

Valiant won Best Caribbean Music Act at the MOBO Awards, and his 2025–2026 North American and European tour dates reportedly sold out multiple venues, reflecting his rapid ascent from a decade-long journeyman career to international touring headliner in under three years. Alongside Skillibeng, Masicka and Teejay, he's frequently cited as part of the generation that pulled trap production, viral social-media moments and R&B melodicism into the center of mainstream dancehall.