Riefoli lived the few first years of the 1980s in London, before starting out his musical career in 1984, landing mostly in the new wave scene with his English language debut album, Raf.

1 spot in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, South Africa and Canada, and was a major hit in Ireland, Australia, France, the Netherlands and the UK.

[3] Other English-language singles from Raf, "Change Your Mind", "London Town" and "Hard", were not as successful, and after an unsuccessful 1987 re-release of his first album with two of these songs as bonus tracks, Riefoli began to transition from the new wave/dance-pop genre into a softer pop style featuring vocals in his native language.

In the German-speaking territories, where the German Red Army Faction, a terrorist cell, was popularly known by the acronym RAF, Riefoli was marketed as Raff, with a second "f".

Raf continues to have a successful recording career in Italy with his latest studio albums, Metamorfosi (2008), Numeri (2011) and Le ragioni del cuore (2012), reaching No.