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”) ...

Algeria is positioned at an unusual juncture with respect to both geography and history. As a Mediterranean state, it's been immersed for centuries in a wash of influences from all over Europe and ...

For the Algerian band Democratoz, getting audience members up and dancing isn’t the only goal. They want a revolution. Known for their eclectic mix of Algerian rai, rock and reggae, the seven members ...

“World music” is an impossibly vague and imprecise term that raises more questions than it answers. But for vocalist, keyboardist and producer Lamine Fellah, “world music” neatly sums up the ...

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), ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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