Cheika Remitti was always an amazing Algerian musician, and always the center of controversy.
Though Rai has become a popular and powerful form of international music, its folk roots in the traditional villages of Algeria roots run deep. Some of the most heartfelt rai, like the music of Cheika Remitti, as you’ll see in this video, are songs of hardship and struggle, though, ultimately, also songs of survival.
Cheb Khaled is at its heart of remarkable Algerian rai.
Spending our class week in North Africa gives us the chance to enjoy rai, an electrifying, socially-engaged form of modern North African music. The genre originated in, and is most influential, in Algeria, where the expressive genre –“rai” means “opinion”– has been a thorn in the political side of successive Algerian governments since the ’70s. In this video we meet one of rai’s most dynamic performers, Cheb Khaled.
In our online class this week we’re all about the music and cultures of North Africa. First we focus on Algeria, embracing this historic home of Berbers and Barbary pirates, a land of vast Saharan deserts and lush, green oases. Then we take a jaunt out to Morocco, where the vast percentage of its native citizens are of mixed Berber-Arab descent, to attend a Berber marriage festival. If we play our cards right, we’ll fall in love.
We end our week of North African exploration in Algeria, where Algerian-born, French-based artist Rachid Taha demonstrates the beauty of borderlessness in his music.
Rachid Taha blends traditional Algerian forms with modern Rai, infusing that mixture with electrifying Western punk, electronica, rock and more. As we can see in this video, Taha takes us everywhere at once. We, at All Around This World, can’t wait to join him.
