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Nasser Al-Taee
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
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“In rai, there are always enemies, there are always problems.”
Djillali, an Algerian fan (Shade-Poulsen 124)
- It is no coincidence that rai surged onto the Algerian popular music
landscape during the 1980s, a time in which Islamic reformists brought
about new challenges to the political, cultural, and artistic scenes
in the developing country. [Listen
to an example of rai.] Caught between tradition and modernization, and
reacting to the failure of socialism and its inability to appeal to
the majority of the Algerian masses, the country sank into a brutal
civil war between the military-backed regime and Islamic conservatives
demanding a fair democratic election. Algerian rai artists responded
by expressing disenchantment with their countrys situation through
a modernized genre largely based on its traditional, folk-based, sacred
ancestor. In Arabic rai means opinion, a word reflecting
the desire for freedom of speech and expression, values that have been
subjected to extreme censorship by non-democratic Arab governments.
Currently, rai is associated with an emerging youth culture and the
new connotations ascribed to the genre reflect tenets of liberalism
that depart from the past. In its newly adopted form, rai represents
an alternative mode of protest and liberation.
- When new rai began to achieve popularity in Algeria and Europe in
the late 70s and early 80s, rai artists and the conservative factions
were at odds with each other because of their conflicting ideological
positions. In their lyrics, rai singers reject older religious models,
voice their resentment that pleasure would be associated with sin, and
insist on free speech. Conservatives, on the other hand, claim that
it is time to seek radical salvation for the country; they would provide
an Islamic solution to the countrys increasing new challenges.
- Scholars, from either the Middle East or the West, usually discuss
rai from the vantage point of its political and sexual messages; both
issues connect to the identity of the music and its audiences (see
Schade-Poulsen). Many of those who listen to rai find
power
in its rhythms and highly politicized lyrics. For certain listeners,
rai promotes cultural values that address particular taboos in the
Middle
East: immigration and assimilation, criticism of the state, modernization,
and the place of sex and sexual activities within an Islamic society.
Other listeners enjoy rais dance rhythms and its eclectic musical
style without necessarily understanding or agreeing with its lyrics.
One of rais strengths lies in its ability to appeal to diverse
social groups.
- As a transgressive popular music genre, rai combines Eastern styles
of singing with Western instruments. Its rhythms mix complex Arabic
and African patterns with Spanish flamenco, American disco, hip-hop,
and reggae. Modern rai emerged from the Algerian port city of Oran
on
the Mediterranean in the early 80s, and by the early 90s rai had achieved
enormous popularity in the Middle East, Europe, and, to a lesser extent,
the U.S. Based largely on Algerian folklore of shabi,
traditional rai was sung within a private domain by a cheikh,
a person revered for his or her age or religious and social
stature. In the 1920s and 1930s, rai re-emerged when oppressed and
marginalized
women adopted the pseudo-sacred genre and used it as a vehicle to express
political, social, and sexual freedoms. In its most recent development
since the early 80s, rai artists, such as Khaled and Rachid Taha, base
their lyrics and singing style on the traditional genre. Pop-rai,
as
it is commonly known today, has become controversial throughout the
Middle East due to its lyrics, its musical slippage (which resists
definition
and categorization), and its challenges to traditions. Rai singers
strong political reactions to the civil war, coupled with their borrowing
of Western instruments and rhythms, facilitated rais resurgence
into the worlds musical scene where it stimulated debates regarding
politics, identity, and sexuality among young Algerians living at
home
and abroad.
- The politics, identity, and sexual narratives of Algerian rai have
not received their due attention from music critics, sociologists,
or
musicologists. In the last two decades, since the genre re-emerged
on the global popular music scene, scholars such as Andy Morgan, Tony
Langlois,
and Marc Schade-Poulsen, for example, have focused almost exclusively
on rais origins and reception. Morgan provides a solid summary
of the origin of rai and its major contributors, while Langlois examines
aspects of the local and the global within the context of popular music.
Schade-Poulsens book presents an excellent study on the social
significance of rai as a powerful force within Algerian (male) youth
society. While such studies advance our understanding of the genre,
they ignore that rai is a musical statement rebelling against political,
social, and religious constraints. Central to my argument is the reception
of rai: who embraces it, who opposes it, and why. I further attempt
to situate rai within a global position of world music, and focus in
particular on its transgressive and discursive qualities as a rebellious
musical genre that defies labeling and celebrates its multiplicity.
- I am most concerned with the concept of identity among rais
audiences and artists. In examining rai, I analyze its musical and political
contexts and look at how politics and sexuality converge to frame the
lyrics and musical styles of a defiant genre. Using the political and
cultural crisis in modern Algeria, rai artists inject their music with
fiery lyrics, funky beats, and Western instruments, while calling for
an end to violence in a country torn by a bloody civil war. Through
this process, rai artists reveal their social, political, and moral
identity through lyrics that express pain, anger, frustration, as well
as love, desire, and a quest for social and political freedom. While
surveying the re-emergence of rai in the past decades, I focus specifically
on its most visible artists, selecting repertory from Cheba Fadela,
Cheb Hasni, Cheb Mami, Rachid Taha, and Khaled.
- In the early 1900s, rai was sung and performed by men respected for
their strong moral and social stature in the city of Oran. The singers
were referred to as cheikh, a term meaning honorable
or master. Their rural songs combined the sentimentality
of ballads and the mysticism of the Sufi tradition, and they accompanied
their vocals with gillal (a drum), gasbah (a wooden flute),
and, most importantly, hand clapping. Musically, the repetitive melody,
percussive beat, audience participation through dancing, hand clapping,
and joyous ululations, are all prominent elements of Algerian folk traditions,
shabi. They are also characteristics of Sufi music designed
to promote the metaphysical state of tarab (musical rapture or
ecstasy) through the practice of sama (listening) (see Racy,
Creativity). Rural rai was performed in small, private,
sacred, and social gatherings such as weddings, religious ceremonies,
and the celebration of circumcision. They were attended by close members
of the family and honored guests and the music was enjoyed by a selected
group for selected events.
- In the 1920s and 1930s, peasant women began to resist severe injustice
and domination by men. Their desires to express themselves and enjoy
their own bodies were surrounded by taboos. But due to colonialism,
French occupation, and the deteriorating economy, some women were
forced
to work in nightclubs, cabarets, and even in brothels to meet the harsh
demands of life. As a result, a group in rural Algeria
emerged from the dust of old traditions and poverty: women and daughters
of peasant laborers and orphans who became known as women of
the cold shoulder. These women challenged local traditions by
adapting the style and songs of the cheikhs with a “shocking
approach to poetry and music (Morgan, “Rai” 415).1
As a group, this stratum of society shared many similarities with European
gypsies in dress and behavior. Morgan links the inspirations for their
art to the concept of mehna, an Arabic term for suffering and
hardship, which he compares to the notion of duende from the
Flamenco tradition (Morgan, “Rai” 417). The cheikhat,
as they came to be labeled, were viewed by the rest of the male
and
traditional female society as a threat. Perhaps it was the linking
of rai to mehna in this context that first opened this musical
genre to expressing opinion and protest.
- Socially segregated from the rest of the society, the cheikhat
felt free to challenge conventional rules and roles of women. The lyrics,
tempo, and style of the private and sacred genre had to be drastically
modified to suit its new purposes and audience:
For all the distance traveled, rai has always been a music
of the margins. Cheikha Remitti has been singing sex and drink for
over half a century, and the chebs and chebas still exile themselves
from polite society with lyrics like We made love in a run-down
shack. (sic) (Rosen 22)
Remittis
radical message, however, did not stop at describing sexual pleasures
and breaking traditional female boundaries. When the armed Algerian
resistance broke out against the French following WWII, Remitti (born
in 1923) did not hesitate in joining the resistance. Proudly she stated:
The FLN (Front de Liberation National) didnt have
to contact me. Straight after the uprising of November 1, 1954, I began
to sing about the armed struggle
to brave the colonial police and
sing about a free Algeria in public (Morgan, “Thursday Night
Fever” 128). Remittis legendary stature serves as vital
inspiration for current rai singers like Cheba Fadela and others who
echo similar sentiments. Following the revolution and Algerias
independence from France in 1962, the legend of the cheikhat
continued to affect Algerian society and its social values. The cheikhat
further inspired female singers to articulate and contest the prohibitions
against expressions of female sexuality and outspokenness on political
issues.
- According to Rabah Mezouane,
Remitti is undoubtedly the most radical of the cheikhats.
She is also the one who founded the thematic bases of rai as it is
played on today and the artisan of a poetic technique
which lies on an inventory of words including the allusive sexual
jargon of the red-light districts
, the drawling tonic accent
of the village idiom and the list of metaphors, double meanings and
the clichés of the malhûn.
In the post-revolutionary Algeria of the mid 1960s, artists focused
on modernizing rai by making it danceable, replacing some of the traditional
instruments with European ones, and cutting the length of songs in half.
At this time, Oran was the center for numerous musical traditions, including
the classical Arabic-Andalusia tradition and its close affiliates, the
art songs of the malhûn and shabi, as well
as influences from Spanish flamenco and American jazz, which were introduced
by soldiers during WWII. In order to separate themselves from previous
associations connected with rai, the new generation of rai singers called
themselves cheb, (masculine) and cheba
(feminine) meaning young, not only to denote their youth but also to
distinguish their art from that of the their predecessors. Situating
themselves against traditions, rai artists came to be associated with
rebellion and a brand of marginality that soon became mainstream and
the mark of a whole new generation.
- Rai had to be made accessible on more than one level. Lyrics were
modified from the proper qasida (classical Arabic poetry) to
incorporate topics and dialects taken from everyday life. Musical structure
was altered drastically so that a single musical unit could serve for
many verses, and songs became shorter and less complex. Gone was the
long muqaddimah (musical introduction), which on its own can
last several minutes. The tempo was radically accelerated through the
use of Western rhythms drawn from disco and reggae. Rai artists also
modified the traditional ensemble by introducing instruments associated
with Western pop, such as guitars, keyboards, and synthesizers, and
these instruments inspired a different approach to harmony. Even though
some instrumentskeyboard, accordion, and saxophonewere modified
to play the Arabic quartertone, rai uses the conventional scales shared
by Western traditions (major, minor, and phrygian mode, in particular
are popular). Finally, rai borrowed from different international styles
to achieve legitimacy as popular music. The use of blues chord progressions,
Jamaican reggae, and disco arrangements give the music its diversity
of style, energizing it and giving it additional sophistication.
- These changes were made possible by new technologies and the consequent
shift in the site of musicking, from live concert to the studio.2
Technologies associated with studio recordings, electric keyboards,
synthesizers, amplified sounds, and drum machines allowed for the
abandonment
of the large Egyptian style orchestra used in shabi
in favor of a smaller, more intimate, and more economical band. The
drum machine replaced the percussion ensemble while the synthesizer
substituted for the large string section. As Simon Frith argues, recordings
and technology create a public means of emotionally complex communication.
By embracing new performing and musical styles, rai artists also move
audiences by coding their music with a different type of personal
aura.
Cheba Fadela and Cheb Sahraoui rely on their deep rough voices, which
are traditional for rai singers but not particularly favored in the
Arabic world.3 Khalids rebel image
is well known from his drinking and smoking while living in Paris.
By
allowing for the exaggeration and manipulation of
voices, technology helps singers further create a self-determined image
and promote themselves as celebrities.
- Changes in music were also accompanied by changes in function. The
increased
availability
of rai through radio, cassette, live concerts, and music videos, made
rai accessible to a larger and more diverse audience. Algerian producers
have limited funds and technologyin fact, only few own 24-track
studios. Rachid Baba Ahmed and his brother Fethi have been the most
famous rai producers in Algeria. Active in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, they
were the first to introduce the complete synthesizer and drum-machine
sound into rai in 1982 (Schade-Poulsen 1718). Island/Mango records
was for a while one of the chief sponsors of pop rai and was the first
to sign Cheba Fadela and Cheb Sahraoui, whose album Nsal Fik
(You are mine) is considered by many the first rai record to
achieve international recognition. They followed that record with Ana
Ana (Me and Me), which included a complete translation of
the lyrics into English on the inside CD cover.
- Rai emerged in the 80s as one of the worlds leading musical
representatives of pop culture and World Beat. Artists like Khaled,
Cheb Mami (the Prince of Rai), and Cheba
Fadela sold millions of records world wide. In Europe, Khaled (the King
of Rai) emerged as the premier celebrity of the genre and managed
to land a major producer, Don Was, who gave him greater international
exposure. As a result, Khaleds self-titled 1992 CD claimed universal
success due, in part, to higher quality recording and distribution.
Khaleds 1992 smash hit Didi was popular in nightclubs
for months and eventually earned him a Cesar (the French equivalent
of the American “Oscar”) for best soundtrack album in France.
While touring the Middle East, Khaled enjoyed audience sizes unprecedented
since the peak of Egypts ughniya (popular song) in the
70s, which included singers such as Umm Kulthum, Abd al-Wahhab, and
Abdul Halim Hafiz. By the late 90s, rai dominated the world music market,
achieving major success throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.
Seeking greater exposure and freedom, most rai artists left their war-torn
Algeria and settled in France where they continue to produce concerts
and albums with increasing popularity.
![Footnotes](../al_taee-media/footnotes.jpg)
*
A shorter version of this paper was planned for the IASPM-US Annual Conference
in Iowa City, Iowa on 14 September 2001. Due to the tragic events
of 11
September 2001, the conference was cancelled but papers were made available
online. My title is drawn from Van Halens song Runnin
with the Devil which was used by Robert Walser in his book Running
with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music.
I am indebted to Robert Walser for his encouragement, comments, and valuable
advice regarding the manuscript. I would like to thank Katherine Hughes
for helping edit the manuscript and Katherine Hughes Management Consulting
for its sponsorship of the article. I
would also like to express my thanks and gratitude to Maria Cizmic and
Cecilia Sun for their invaluable feedback and recommendations in editing
the
manuscript.
1. Incidentally, the term cheikha
serves as a derogatory term for female dancers from the lower class. However,
the masculine term cheikh does not apply to male singers and dancers
and, thus, retains its honorable meaning.
2. I am using the term musicking
as outlined by Christopher Small. Small offers the following definition:
To music is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance,
whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing
material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing
(9).
3. With the exception of a few singers
like Farid al-Atrash, Muhammad Abdel Wahhab, and Umm Kulthum, the Egyptian
ughniyah favors singers with high and thin voices, such as that
of Abdel Halim Hafiz, Warda al-Jazaeriyah, and more recently Hani Shakir,
Hakim, and Amr Diab.
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