Excellent article by Ted Swedenburg on Khaled and rai — debunks prevalent misconceptions about both. Brilliant! Check out Ted’s HawgBlawg — well worth the time.
Cheb Khaled, the Algerian rai singer who is probably the best-known Arabic singer on the planet, was selected this summer as one of NPR’s 50 Great Voices. Banning Eyre, a regular commentator on World Music on NPR and producer for Afropop Worldwide who has worked tirelessly to promote music from Africa, including the Maghreb, introduced Khaled to the NPR audience. Unfortunately, his introduction of Khaled repeated several unfortunate and misleading myths about rai music. Eyre presents a picture of an exceptional artist who favors tolerance and peace, and whose courageous positions have angered many Muslims and forced him to take refuge in the West. Eyre depicts Khaled as well as a kind of “bad boy,” in the image of a U.S. rock’n'roller. Khaled, from “a land [Algeria] torn apart by intolerance and violence,” says Eyre, “stood out as an artist who embraced openness and peace.” The real story of Khaled is more interesting, one rooted in Algerian politics and in its large and vibrant musical scene.
In 2002, I spent the year researching the emergence of an alternative music movement in Morocco. Made up of a collection of genres that lie on the periphery of mainstream culture — hip-hop, electronica, rock/metal, fusion — alternative music had yet to break through. 2002 was its year on the cusp. In 2003, it would make its move to center stage and, within a few years, hip-hop and fusion bands would become major players in Moroccan pop culture.
My dissertation, French Fries in the Tagine: Re-imagining Moroccan Popular Music (UCLA, Department of Ethnomusicology, 2006), which focused on fusion, examined this change in the musical playing field, how it happened and what it meant. I’m posting this link to share the work and ask for feedback. I’m currently writing a book on Moroccan alternative music that will hopefully bring this fascinating story to a wider audience.
The exoticizing of the non-Western other in World Music is a continuing phenomenon — freely used in marketing and eagerly accepted by most fans. “Music of resistance” is one sub-category of that phenomenon. In a recent preview of a San Francisco concert by Tinariwen, I avoided emphasizing their music as born out of resistance (it’s only part of the back story) but the headline my editor wrote included “rebel music” as a descriptor (see: It’s only rock ‘n’ roll – also links to two other recent pieces on Tinariwen).
Today (February 20, 2010), the Touareg website Temoust posted an enlightening interview with sociologist Denis-Constant Martin of the Cité de la musique museum in Paris. Martin discusses the “musics of resistance” phenomenon. Must reading for World Music fans.
“Un mythe, voire une mystique de la résistance s’instaure à partir de discours tenus sur la musique qui ne correspondent pas nécessairement à ce que l’analyse musicale pourrait elle-même déceler.”(“A myth or a mystique of resistance is established from discourses about music that does not necessarily correspond to what music analysis itself could detect.”)
A slow Hendrix blues riff, deep, rough and insistent, slashes through the aural space. Broken down and repeated, the opening riff is joined by the offbeat upstrokes of a second, trebly electric guitar establishing a shuffle counterpoint. A fast rap barely breaks through the sound of the guitars, becoming louder when it morphs into a sung chorus with backing vocals (three, maybe four words). About four minutes in, the guitars drop out and the song is stripped down: a fast rap over a loopy funk bass line, accompanied by handclaps and soft percussion. The offbeat guitar upstrokes return joined by an arpeggiated riff on a second guitar, then a lead guitar. The vocals become secondary as the guitars propel the song to its ending and the opening riff returns. While the description could fit a performance of an up-and-coming indie band at the Noise Pop festival later this month, (to read more click here for the East Bay Express article)
In 2002, I spent a year in Morocco researching the emerging alternative music scene in Casablanca. Most of my attention went to the creation of a new genre of Moroccan music that soon carried the label “fusion.” Heavily influenced by French fusion bands, such as Gnawa Diffusion, Moroccan fusion blended Moroccan genres (cha’abi, gnawa, houari…) with rock, rap, salsa (and other international–mostly Black Atlantic–genres). Fusion also built upon earlier musical blendings. One of the roots of fusion was the music of the ’70s, which included the folk revival that included bands such as Nass el Ghiwane. Less remembered were solo urban artists, such as Abderrahim Askouri, described to me as a “musician’s musician” from Hay Mohammadi in Casablanca who influenced Nass el Ghiwane and other folk revival artists and also Khaled who spent a couple of years refining his chops in the clubs of Casa before returning to Oran and becoming a rai superstar.
Record producer Maurice El Baz played me some Askouri tracks but despite an evening searching cassette shops in popular quartiers of Casa, I never obtained my own copy of Askouri’s work. I just stumbled upon a posting by Abdel Halim El Hachimi on his Tales of Bradistan on Abderrahim Askouri and had to pass it on. Now, I got to get a copy of the cd Abdel so luckily found. A final note Abderrahim Askouri’s nephew Younes Askouri is a very talented singer-songwriter working in Casa today, a member of the 21st century fusion scene (YouTube clip below).
Abderrahim Askouri -- click on album cover to read the story
Another interesting article on Rai that dispels or at least “problematizes” some of the widely-accepted ideas about Rai as a genre (at least our conceptions of Rai in the West). I don’t agree with everything Ted (Swedenburg) writes but most of it is spot-on. From Ted’s Hawgblawg, which is always interesting and often provocative — check it out!
There have been few posts on this blog of late in part because I’m trying to focus on the manuscript for my book, Radio Interzone. Lately I’ve been working on the chapter on rai music, to be based in part on articles published previously, some with Joan Gross and David McMurray others on my own. (See the bibliography at the end.) Lately I’ve been reading or rereading a number of articles on rai, both journalistic and academic, gathered over the last three years or so. In the course of doing so I’ve noticed a number of myths and misconceptions, that keep being repeated, over and over, in the literature. I attempt to correct the record here, as best I can. Or maybe I should say, I attempt to problematize the truisms that circulate, endlessly, about rai. Some of what I write re-states what I/we have written before. (And I must admit, I/we are responsible for circulating some of the errors.)
1. Rai means “opinion” in Arabic. From this claim flows an understanding that the lyrics of rai convey the opinion of the singer, in a fairly straightforward and unmediated way. Such “opinion,” moreover, is for the most part, direct, and, by implication, oppositional.
Rai of course literally means “opinion” or point of view. But in this musical genre, the significance of the word is not so much its literal meaning but that it functions, in many songs, as a word or phrase like “oh yeah,” “yeah, yeah,” or “tell it like it is.” That is, it serves to emphasize whatever point is being made. (see Mazouzi, 269) [to read on click here].
Lovers’ (or Sentimental) Rai is the least studied and least appreciated style of Rai outside of Algeria. It had none of the markers of the other Rai styles that captivated Western audiences and commentators — it was not “traditional,” a “music of protest,” and did not show “World Music eclecticism” — but it was the most popular style of Rai in the ’90s in Algeria. Abdel Halim El Hachimi’s interview of one of its most popular singers turns needed attention to Lovers’ Rai.
The Cheb Nasro Story
After the departure of Khaled and Cheb Mami to France at the end of the 1980s, two other singers became the figureheads of Rai music in Algeria. One was the late, great Cheb Hasni and the other was Cheb Nasro. These singers specialised in a newer and slower form of the music, which often became known as “sentimental Rai”. It is impossible to exaggerate the impact that Hasni and Nasro had across the Maghreb and both were enormous stars in their homeland. However, neither were signed by international record companies and their fame was almost solely among north Africans and their compatriots in France, Belgium and Holland.
With its lack of international crossover success, this new generation of Rai music did not gain the recognition it deserved. Partly this was because there was no promotional machine behind the artists and also because the musical production values had slipped quite a lot. Although there were still great musicians living in the country after the outbreak of civil war from 1991, it became increasingly difficult for artists to develop their careers and live performances dwindled away. What is clear is that amongst westerners, there barely exists any knowledge or understanding about the last twenty years or so of Rai music and the artists who made it.
A few days ago, I conducted an extensive interview with Cheb Nasro himself and he talked very candidly about his career and his experiences. This is a story that has never been told before and gives us an illuminating insight into the harsh reality of Rai music in Algeria. [To read more go to Tales from Bradistan]
When I interviewed Don Bigg in Casablanca in 2008, he told me that his goal was for his albums to be in the rap bins at Virgin and FNAC, not the World Music bin. Steeped in the hip-hop tradition, there was no place other than the rap category where his music belonged — still, as a non-Western artist (rapping in Moroccan Arabic), there was always a chance he’d end up in the World Music bin. His new album Byad ou K7al (Black & White), released 24 Dec. 2009, reached #10 on the Amazon (France) list of best-selling album downloads. A chart without genre breakdowns (no bins, virtual or otherwise) creates another kind of reality. If you search “musique du monde” on Amazon (France) Bigg is nowhere to be found but search in the “hip-hop/rap” category and, voila, there are the tracks from his new album.
Here’s “Itoub” from Bigg’s new album:
TRANSLATION OF ITOUB courtesy of Don Bigg (much respect to the big man)
GOD BLESS (ITOUB)
Yeah
That’s what’s up
I see you man
Thank you thank you thank you
God bless God bless God bless God bless
That’s what’s up that’s what’s up
God bless God bless God bless God bless
HOOK 1
Those who held me down since day one man
Today I wanna sing about them man
I wanna stand up, salute them and say
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
VERSE 1
To all those who held me down since the beginning, God bless, god bless and thank you
I ain’t never gon’ forget where I came from and thorns are
Erect at home and come see that
Bigg ain’t never gon’ recover from the rap music sickness
I ain’t never gon’ forget y’all no matter what happens
In front of my parents, moms and pops happy
See me in the papers remember all
The rehearsing and chilling in the hallway
Aah yeah, that’s what’s up man
I won’t forget Masta Flow back in the days of “lblan bayn”
Yo Bigg, rap in Arabic
What you crazy, you trynna make a fool of me?
If I hadn’t followed Masta Flow’s advice in that room
You would’ve never bought the cd I wanted
You would’ve never heard Bigg on the beat
And I would’ve never stood in front of you and sang
HOOK 2
Those who held me down since day one man
Today I wanna sing about them man
I wanna stand up, salute them and say
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
VERSE 2
Yo Imam Malik, you where I put my head up at
That’s where I learned to rap when I used to cut class
They used to call me a hard-headed shorty
I used to pass the year, fighting with my teeth
Whether they wanted or not, I used to pass
Even though the whole year I be in the school yard kissing
Since a kid my intention was making madd loot
Don’t believe me? Ask 7ershawy
College saw me on the road to Jdida
It was the school bus, I ain’t had a whip
Mobb Deep in class, not the lollipop
God bless the copy center
When we graduated, they were to thank for our grades
It’s raining, and the nigga in the jaguar just slammed the door
God bless, now the niggaz with the sticks is here
They left those who started shit and fucked up those they wanted
HOOK 3
Those who held me down since day one man
Today I wanna sing about them man
I wanna stand up, salute them and say
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
VERSE 3
God bless, God bless the fans
Ladies and niggaz
I see y’all, keep pushing up the country with us
All those who bought my cd and didn’t regret it
God bless those who dissed me, the nerve of them! They got no shame
God bless all y’all brothers
Thank you thank you thank you man
Black and White, Black and White, and Moroccans Till Death
God bless the streets that showed me
The bad from the good and got me addicted to rap music
God bless the media that forgot me, that put me on, and that dirtied at my name
God bless the rappers that diss me
Get your ticket, tell them let me in the line
God bless belqas Hisham
Put two fingers up in the sky, staright
HOOK 4
Those who held me down since day one man
Today I wanna sing about them man
I wanna stand up, salute them and say
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
Those who held me down since day one man
Today I wanna sing about them man
I wanna stand up, salute them and say
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
The Virtual Maghreb: ”The digital world has created greater access for artists, particularly those from small markets whether due to geography, language or genre. Particularly good news for alternative artists in small countries and that brings us to alternative music artists in Morocco. The virtual world has created a platform for alternative artists in Morocco (hip-hop, fusion, rock, electronica, singer-songwriters) that was hardly imaginable 10 years ago.” {Click on the link to read more}
Reda Allali of Casablanca rockers Hoba Hoba Spirit
_The Blues Metaphor_ (Moroccan Roll column from Vol. 27 #4) — discusses the often-tenuous use of the blues as a metaphor to describe and pigeonhole genres of popular and traditional music, particularly music from Africa or the African diaspora).
Saturday, December 12, 2009
