Cheb Mami’s name may not be on the tip of your tongue, but odds are his music is. Over the past decade, this Algerian native has skyrocketed to the top of the world’s Arabic rai (pronounced “rye”) ...

Cheikha Rimitti helped put raï music on the map–a cool, groovy style that originated in the Algerian port city of Oran in the 1920s, a mix of Bedouin folk music, French, Spanish, African and Arabic ...

The recent death of French Algerian superstar Rachid Taha brought to mind the musical genre called raï, so I decided to feature it this week by highlighting a few raï artists.… It’s not hard to ...

In the 1980s, Algeria experienced a tumultuous social context which reached its peak during the riots of October 88. This wave of protest, with youth as its figurehead, echoed the texts of raï singers ...

Every bit the people's music as much as punk or hip-hop, raï has been flourishing for decades, even after post-colonial Marxist governments pushed it underground. Sublime Frequencies' vinyl-only ...

Cheikha Rimitti, a pioneer of the rebellious Algerian pop called rai, died May 15 in Paris, where she had lived since 1978. She was 83. Cheikha Rimitti was considered the queen of rai (RYE or rah-AY), ...

Rai, an Algerian musical genre newly registered by the UN agency as part of the world's 'intangible cultural heritage', has accompanied the country's social changes for a century Cheb Khaled played a ...

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