Smiley was born on the beautiful Island of Aruba as Tavis Nedd in 1980.
He has been making music since he was seventeen years old. In 2000 he moved to The Netherlands, where he started touring with the popular Dutch reggae band Out of Many for three years.
Smiley formed his own band in 2004 and performed at several festivals and venues in Holland, Belgium, Germany, Switserland and Aruba from then on. Smiley has also been popular reggae artist Ziggi’s support act on his Dutch and German In Transit tour.
In 2008 Smiley travelled to Jamaica to work with great producers and musicians such as Barry ‘o Hare and Altafaan Records. The first result of these collaborations is a song with Junior Kelly. The video of the track called “Dem a Wonder” has been released on YouTube on November 10th 2008. From then it has been aired by Reggae Entertainment Television, Tempo TV and TMF Pure. Besides that, the song been played by the biggest reggae radio station in Jamaica: Irie FM.
November 20th 2009 Smiley’s tune “Distance” was released on the Tek “a” Train riddim selection of the German reggae label Rootdown Records. The video of this song was released online on December 23th 2009. Not only has the video reached a number 1 position in the Reggaefrance video charts. This video has been in high rotation on various music television stations such as Tempo Tv and TMF Pure.
The Lively Road EP was released in May 2010 and was received very enthusiastically by various reggae communities. The reviews were all very positive and it resulted in Smiley performing on two very big reggae festivals in Germany: Reggaejam and Ruhr Reggae Summer. The title song of the EP also became a top ten charted song in the summer of 2010 on the islands Curacao and Bonaire in the Caribbean and Smiley adorned the list between top-billing acts like Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.
By the end of 2010 Smiley was featured on a number of riddimselections and collaboration, such as Spanish rapper Abram (Rogando a Jah). Smiley has a song on three of the five best German riddims of 2010, voted by the readers of Riddim Magazine; Kokoo Riddim (Lively Road) Everlasting Riddim by Powpow Movement (Bad Minds) and the Youth Riddim (State of emergency).
State of Emergency was released on the same day as Smiley’s newest collaboration single “Keep the Joy” featuring Anthony B. As of February 18th 2011 both songs are available on Itunes and other known online musicstores.
Besides making it on the German Riddim Magazine in February 2011, Keep the Joy was also featured on the famous comic Dread & Alive's Lost Tapes vol.6