Born into a family of musicians in Pula (then SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia), Cetinski began singing when he was 15 years old with various local groups.

He moved from Rovinj to Zagreb in 1991 to start his career, and quickly became one of Croatia's leading pop stars.

[1] He also recorded the song "Lagala nas mala" as a duet with Macedonian singer Toše Proeski.

This song appears on both of Proeski's 2005 albums, Po tebe and its Croatian edition Pratim te.

In 2009, Cetinski won the Porin award for best male vocal performance with his song "Ako to se zove ljubav".