EVERY GENRE PROJECT - May 3 - Raï
Genre of the Day - Raï
Album of the Day - You Are Mine by Chaba Fadela (1988)
May 3, 2024
When willing to speak truth to real phenomena, musicians can do themselves a great service in differentiating themselves from singers willing to gloss over the nitty gritty. Sometimes, this happens on the genre level, and your genre gets branded with an eternal youthful spirit by name basis. This is the case with Raï: when it arrived in the clubs of Algeria’s “Little Paris” Oran in the 1920s, singers bucked the typical singing traditions of the area and improvised to sing about pressing social issues. If you sang raï, you were dubbed a cheb, meaning young. Raï itself means opinion: to be a raï singer, you were sharing an opinion. It’s a genre with an overarching statement of intent.
The youth are typically the visionaries in conveying new issues via music, from the artistic targets of Algeria’s socially-conscious raï singers (disease, suppression) to modern stars like Lil Uzi Vert when he debuted (the xandemic). With nothing to lose and armed with trusty words, the youth will always find their way to a microphone to pontificate and shake things up.
Raï singers went an extra mile to emphasize these lyrical changes by incorporating a vast range of traditional and colonial influences. As it came into being, raï baked in the musical traditions of Algeria’s Bedouin native population and Moroccan gnawa music, as well as taking the stylistic flairs of flamenco and French cabaret. If the cabaret influence tells you anything, initially raï challenged some traditional gender norms. Singers broadcasted hedonistic and even salacious lyrics, and the genre emphasized dancing in an often mixed-gender environment. As much as the lyrics were explicitly opinionated, raï was an inherently progressive musical moment. Hence why it has been suppressed at several points in the decades after its popularity became entrenched. However, since the 1980s, it’s seen a revival.
This album captures raï at a time when it was continuing to morph by converging with synthesized music. This 1989 album from singer Chaba Fadela features drum machines and synth wizardry, but it never lets musical richness fade out in the presence of these tools of automation; the contrasting sounds enhance its uniqueness. These songs are all about seven minutes long, taking time to sink into their grooves, as if you’re in a club in Algiers with nowhere else to go, immersed in the music. While I have no idea if raï’s political streak persisted into the ‘80 given the fact I don’t have access to these lyrics, Fadela can make any lyric sound potent. Standout “Nebki ouahdi” features an overtone of militaristic marching that feels like raï’s take on Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk”, dynamic bass and swirling melodies lending it a fantastic groove. “Ateni bniti” is apparently a two-part suite, with the first song sounding more explicitly western and poppy to prove raï’s range while part two leans back into the Arabic scale that makes this album such an engaging listen melodically alongside party-raising drum machine claps. Each song distinctifs itself, though—raï has a chameleonic ability to represent Algeria musically. I must also note that the photograph used for this cover is particularly stunning.