Baaziz

I love this guy. I have made several videos with his music on my blogs and in my youtube channel.

Here he is singing with Syrine. He is so so so good

Rayha Win?

Where are you going girl?

This song is so amazing... RAYHA WIN

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS

This movie was really the turning point in my life with Algeria.. Its an amazing movie...

Going on with your life when you think you just cannot

I think alot of my attachment to Algeria has to do with the fact that Algerians were there when I felt like no one was there...

I loved this movie that was done about the years 1988 to 1998 by an Algerian on youtube. Its really good. Its about the Algerian civil war

Darja

What is DARJA? Its the language that many Algerians speak..Its not exactly Arabic.. its a mix of all kinds of words.. in fact you can get so used to darja that you do not even speak arabic anymore. Its a special dialect in Algeria... Kabilyes talk another language called tamazight but in Algeria, most people speak Algerian darja

This is Oran's dialect of Darja... If you play this for someone who speaks primarily arabic, they might not understand everything everyone was saying



Algiers dialect



A song in Tamazight

One of the most significant books about RAI and ORAN's MUSIC that I have ever read

http://www.estradasphere.com/eshop/index.php?main_page=product_music_info&products_id=124

This is a link to underground rai music

A review of his book from MSN

Rai music is often called the voice of the voiceless in Algeria, a society currently swept by tragic conflict. Rai is the voice of Algerian men, young men caught between generations and classes, in political strife, and in economic inequality. In a ground-breaking study, anthropologist Marc Schade-Poulsen uses this popular music genre as a lens through which he views... More Algerian society, particularly male society. He situates rai within Algerian family life, moral codes, and broader power relations.Schade-Poulsen did his research in the 1990s, in clubs, recording studios, at weddings, and with street musicians. He describes the history of rai, which emerged in the late 1970s and spread throughout North Africa at the same time the Islamist movement was growing to become the most potent socio-political movement in Algeria.Outsiders consider rai to be Western in origin, but Schade-Poulsen shows its Islamic roots as well. The musicians do use Western instruments, but the music itself mixes Algerian popular songs and rhythms with the beat of American disco, Egyptian modalities, Moroccan wedding tunes, and the songs of Julio Iglesias. The lyrics deal with male-female relationships but also with generational relationships and the problems of youth, as they struggle to find a place in a conflicted society.

Interesting books about Rai music

I have read some interesting books about RAI music, the rebel music from Algeria and I thought I would post some links here about them from amazon and some clips so you can hear the music. Alot of people who live in in the USA from Morocco claim rai as their own, but RAI, the real thing is from ORAN ALGERIA and it is purely ALGERIAN...


Here are some MP3s available that show you the music of Oran, Algeria

So you wanna go to Algeria and go on vacation and you are American?

Alot of people ask me how to go to Algeria. You have to get an invitation from someone from there and they have to notarise it in the county hall or you can get confirmed reservations from a hotel there and an airplane reservation and then you apply for a visa with the Embassy in the country where you live. Getting tickets to Algeria is alot easier now but if you want to fly on Air Algerie from a European country, you have to buy from an authorised agent. There is an agent in California named Fawzi who sells for Southshore Travel . His email is fawzi@southshoretravel.com or 510 865 5555. If you want to visit someone in Algeria, call him and he will give you great rates to travel there
The visa website is http://www.algeria-us.org/content/view/38/35/

What I dream about for Algeria

I dream about an IMAX movie with horses running towards the front of the screen. I love this movie about Algiers.

Do you want to know a secret? The story begins.....
I LOVE YOU ALGERIA MY BELOVED....

One of my favorite movies about Algeria

I love this song. I love this video. I love this channel. I like everything about this video. I wish I was driving in a car on this street and I could go back in time about 3 years before life got so sad for me..

Making movies about Algeria and sources

I want to first and foremost apologise to anyone if I get facts incorrect about Algerian music or history because sometimes I have relied upon improper sources when talking about Algeria. Thats where you come in if you are Algerian. If something in one my videos is perhaps not what you think is correct , please feel free to post a correction and I will do my best to correct the inaccuracies.

Souad Massi

I first heard her about 3 years ago but honestly, there is just not alot available in English about her and her life. Souad escaped Algeria in the dark years to reinvent herself in Paris.

Here is a set of clips by Souad.

Jon Kiser

One of the first books I read about Algeria was written by Jon. He tells the story of Emir Abdelkader as he recounts the murder of the monks outside of Medea.

Few Americans heard about it, but the story gripped Europe (and especially France) during the summer of 1996: The mysterious kidnapping and murder of seven Trappist monks living in the Algerian village of Tibhirine at their monastery of Notre-Dame de l'Atlas. John W. Kiser III tells their story, or at least what parts of it can be known; much of what happened to them remains unclear, including the motives of their captors. Parts of The Monks of Tibhirine are grim, but this is an unavoidable fact of the case. The monks' bodies, for instance, never have been found--except for their heads. Kiser describes the scene: "The monks' desiccated faces, hollow eye sockets, and exposed teeth made them look like mummies." (Apparently they had been buried, then disinterred.) Readers looking for a nonfiction thriller won't find it on these pages, however. Much of the book is a history of monks living in Algeria, and much of the rest chronicles the good relationships the seven doomed monks shared with their Muslim neighbors. Their devotion to both their faith and their neighbors is inspiring; the way they died is abhorrent. --John Miller

Songs of the Algerian Revolution

Tlemcen and Sid Boumediene

The sufi way....


Not the sufi way but funny as heck and yes this would be sooooooooo me

Can you love Algeria and not be a political person?

I have never really gotten in the middle of politics or controversial subjects concerning Algeria although most things I read bring something up at one time or another. I think alot of this has to do with the fact that I do not take ownership of Algeria. I am just an outsider and that is all I will ever be, an outsider looking in. I still love Algeria but how the heck would I ever know what life is like growing up there or what it is like to be =Arab or Kabilye etc. I just really like the history, culture and music. I just think I will leave politics to the Algerians... I think Algerians understand themselves a heck of a lot better than I will ever understand them...Americans try anyway....I get overwhelmed with emotion when I read or hear about the dark decade and things that happened and I get besides myself because I care so deeply. I am just not from there and not being from there means I am in the dark as to what life has been like for Algerians living there.

Amelie in Montmartre

Do we all have a theme song? I think this would be my "Happy Paris Song"

as opposed to my "Sad Paris Song"




After I lost my son, this song took over my soul... I am sick , Dalida sings... I am sick.. I think everything that made me sick was just not important. Real heartache makes you sick...broken hearted and sick

One of my favorite videos on the web about CAMUS

I saw these pictures of Camus and was blown away....

Albert Camus and Algeria

You cannot really understand Albert Camus until you understand what life was like in Colonial Algeria. His books all center on day to day life in Colonial Algeria. To understand Camus, you need to understand where he grew up. Algeria gave Camus his wings and his soul. His books were based on the day to day struggles between Arabs and Pied Noirs and if a person studying philosophy can truly study Algeria along with reading Camus, the books come alive. I never really understood the Stranger and the Plague until I went to Algeria and understood what life was like for a Pied Noir and an Arab at that time. Camus does not belong to people who live in ivory towers. He belongs to all of us..He was earthy and alive and human

Malcom X, Frantz Fanon and black nationalism

Frantz Fanon once said: "The resistance is ugly because the occupation is ugly".

Wretched of the Earth, written by Frantz Fanon was held up by Malcom X because he saw how Algeria freed itself and in the 1960s blacks were being killed while registering to vote....The Algerian revolution had a huge effect on the civil rights movement.

FANON

Tahar Djaout

Marsaoui

One of the kings of 80s rai.... he had the distinctive rai voice ..

Cheba Fadela and Saharaoui

In the real story of Oran's Rai, you have to know the story of Fadela and Saharaoui, who fell in love and sang together. While no longer together, their love lives on in song....YOU ARE MY EYES sings FADELA



You also see RACHID BABA AHMED who was murdered, their producer and one of the first to mix electronic music with RAI...He was murdered in the mid 90s

Cheba Fadela and Saharaoui

In the real story of Oran's Rai, you have to know the story of Fadela and Saharaoui, who fell in love and sang together. While no longer together, their love lives on in song....YOU ARE MY EYES sings FADELA



You also see RACHID BABA AHMED who was murdered, their producer and one of the first to mix electronic music with RAI...He was murdered in the mid 90s

The song YA MENFI

This song was most likely composed in 1871 and references the exile of Algerians to New Caledonia and how much they suffered being away from Algeria. The french sent Algerians to New Caledonia, most were Kabilye and participated in uprisings against the French Army. France responded by exiling them to far away French possesions. This song YA MENFI has been covered by many artists. MENFI means "exile".

YA MENFI by AKHLI YAHYATEN


The beginning of the legendary 1 2 3 Soleils with Khaled and Faudel and Taha

Ya Rayah and what it means to Algerians

If there was a song that any Algerian would recognise, it would be YA RAYAH by DAHMANE EL HARRACHI. Its been covered by Rai Singers...street singers and most Algerians after hearing a few notes will know it...Here is the beloved YA RAYAH in 2 versions. One old and one popularised by Rachid Taha.



Rachid's version



And no I am not kidding, An INDIAN VERSION OF THIS ALGERIAN SONG... I am a little horrified.. hhahahah

Raina Rai YA ZINA

There are moments in your life you never forget. I cannot even looking back compare what I felt the first time listening to this song YA ZINA by RAINA RAI to other things that have happened in my life but it was a beautiful healing moment. My first book that I wrote called BIG MAHBOULA talks about my love for RAINA RAI. I wanted to post this song because YA ZINA is about the closest thing Algeria has to a Santana like anthem. I got a chance to see them live in December 2007. Lofti Attar the lead guitarist is so unbelievably good and you can literally feel yourself lifting out of your body when he plays. They are from ( RAINA RAI) a little city outside of ORAN called SIDI BEL ABBES. Raina Rai has been touring outside of Algeria in the past . Lately I think they are playing gigs in the arab world and Algeria. I think gigs alone in Algeria keep them pretty busy. Ya Zina, the song basically says Hey Beautiful, pour me some tea ( Hence DIRI LA TAY) Drinking tea is a pretty normal occurance in Algeria, they drink tea and coffee everyday ....not like most of us Americans who drive through drive thru and drink our lattes. Life a few years ago in Algeria was alot slower... Its seems to have sped up a great deal lately.Here are some alblums that have ya zina on it and the book I wrote a few years ago about RAI.




Here is another video of Lofti Attar. I actually got a chance to talk to him for a while and I think he really really loves hard core American blues and would feel very at home at a HOUSE OF BLUES jamming with some old deep south guitarists. Rock on Lofti.

Hasni's Message

Hasni, the father of lover's rai from Oran who was killed tragically in the mid 90's produced over 400 songs... This song called BRAS BOUYA ( LE CONSULAT) is about an Algerian guy trying to get a visa to France to see his love.



Keyboard player on youtube named FOUAD RAI http://www.youtube.com/user/FOUADRAI

The actual track produced in Oran, Algeria. Much of rai and Algerian music focuses on the pain of leaving Algeria and love and loss

Heart and Soul and Nedjma

Understanding Algeria's story can sometimes be helped by reading. Nedjma remains one my favorite books. I made a little carosel of some of my favorite Algerian writers..Kateb Yacine,Tahar Djaout and Assia Djebar. These are all english translations and would give an English reader a good start

Cheikha Rimitti's incredible influence on Algerian music

I have a hard time describing my love for Cheikha Rimitti. I hear her music in much the same way I heard it for the first time in Paris in 2001. You have to know her story to understand her music...

Khaled basically copied her and created the song Le Kamel.






Her soul filled life started as an abandoned child singing in bars for soldiers. She became a world famous world music star living a full life and inspiring the origins of modern rai

Inspector Tahar

One of the first characters I learned about who was from Algeria was INSPECTOR TAHAR. He was an Algerian comedian who was quite frankly amazing and funny and was popular during the 1970's.

He died quite young but is still very beloved in Algeria


His name was Hadj Abderrahmane. He died in 1981.

So you wanna know more about Algerian music and do not know where to start?

I think the most important thing to do is understand the depth of emotion behind the music of Algeria. I myself have a hard time describing my fascination with Algeria but honestly it all started with Algerian music. What would I tell an American or English speaking person to listen to get acquainted with Algerian music? I think would have alot to do with what music they already listen to.

Some recommendations for the first time listener to Algerian music. There are so many more to choose from but I tried to come up with a good first sampling