Algérie, Mémoires du Raï

Raï swept over Algeria in the early 1980s. A few years later, the leading figures of this musical movement: Cheb Khaled, Cheb Mami, Chaba Fadela set out to conquer France where they imposed themselves. Algeria then finds itself in an impasse of which the riots of 1988 will be the social echo; aspiring to a liberalization of morals, it suffocates under an ideological and moral yoke. For the first time, the raï, born in the territory of Oran, dared to express with force the misery of life, the aspirations of youth, but also the intoxication of the senses. Drawing from the source of their culture, young singers claim to be the heirs of the chioukhs, these artists of the beginning of the century who sang the classic texts of Bedoui and popular Arab-Andalusian poetry, in order to affirm the expression of the Arabic language to provide the cultural weapons of the nascent Algerian nationalism. With the death of Cheb Hasni, with the threats hanging over the artists and forcing them into exile, the terrorists think they have triumphed, but raï sets out to conquer the world, allowing millions of people to better understand Algeria. , an Algeria bruised and more creative than ever. Algeria, El Djazaïr, in love with freedom has given the world forever the raï as a heritage. —Algeria Music Magazine