Music genre · Algeria
Raï
Raï is a popular song tradition from western Algeria, centred on the city of Oran. It began as rural song performed by cheikhs and cheikhates in vernacular Arabic, broke social taboos about love, alcohol and freedom, became electric pop in the 1980s with singers such as Cheb Khaled and Cheb Mami, and was inscribed by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity in December 2022.
Published 2 min read
Cheikhs and cheikhates
Raï grew up in the towns and countryside of western Algeria in the first half of the twentieth century. Singers known as cheikhs (masters) and cheikhates (female singers) performed poetic texts in everyday Algerian Arabic, accompanied by traditional instruments such as the gasba reed flute and the guellal drum, at weddings, festivals and in cafés.
The word raï means "opinion" or "point of view", and the songs said what could not be said elsewhere: about love and desire, drink, poverty, exile and the hardships of colonial rule. The great figure of this generation was Cheikha Rimitti (1923–2006), who sang with a frankness that made her a legend and a target of disapproval.
Pop raï
From the 1970s and especially the 1980s, young singers — who took the title cheb (young man) or chaba (young woman) — electrified raï with synthesisers, drum machines, electric guitars and accordion. Oran hosted Algeria's first raï festival in 1985, and the following year the music arrived in France, where a large Algerian community embraced it.
Cheb Khaled, later simply Khaled, became the King of Raï. In 1992 his song "Didi" became the first song by a North African artist to reach charts around the world. Cheb Mami became known as the Prince of Raï. In the violence of Algeria's civil war in the 1990s, the love songs of Cheb Hasni made him one of the country's most popular singers; he was assassinated in Oran in 1994.
Raï in France and beyond
In France raï became part of the soundtrack of North African communities and of French pop itself. Khaled's "Aïcha" (1996), written by Jean-Jacques Goldman, was a major hit, and in 1998 Khaled, Rachid Taha and Faudel filled the Paris-Bercy arena for the concert 1, 2, 3 Soleils.
UNESCO recognition
On 1 December 2022 UNESCO inscribed "Raï, popular folk song of Algeria" on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, recognising both its rural roots and its role as a voice of freedom and social commentary.
Related
For Morocco's trance music tradition, see gnawa. For Algerian modern painting, read about Baya. Raï's mix of melancholy and dance has an Atlantic cousin in the morna of Cabo Verde, and its social voice parallels Senegal's mbalax.