Raï originates from the Oran region of Algeria from Bedouin shepherds, mixed with Spanish, French, African and Arabic musical forms, which dates back to the 1930s and has been primarily evolved by women in the culture. Raï basically means - 'opinion' but is colloquially used as an interjection along the lines of "oh, yeah!.." simply put...a great form of protest music with "yeahs" and shouts and psychedelic brass instruments emulating the elements of nature and social awareness within song.
Bellemou Messaoud - Le Roi de la Trompette Raï w/ Gana el Maghnaoui
Bellemou Messaoud is known as the King of the Raï movement or maybe the father of the Raï movement. Either way Bellemou, Sghir and others introduced 'pop-raï' to the consciousness of the population but Belloemou coined the term. It was never known whether he was ever called a 'cheb' since he has been around for such a long time. Just before and after the post independence of Algeria, the French Yé-yé craze was just happening and along with Bellemou young instrumentalists like Cheb Zergui, Cheb Fadela and Cheb Khaled will bring along a new range of instruments most particularly like guitar effects pedals - most notably fuzz and wah-wah and drum machines. Though the had grown seeing the chebs and chebas singing the raï he also moved with the times! Below is a tune Bellemou sang with another great Raï singer Cheikh Benfissa.
Acid drenched fuzz trip into the night desert - Groupe El-Azhar (translated as the Flowers Group) stuff is really hard to find which why I haven't got any of there records, which i wish i did but don't despair, the awesome people at Sublime Frequencies have a vital compilation with the essential start to Raï. The group was founded by the soon to be famous Cheb Mami during the 1980's!, they started singing about what there previous masters would sing about - Love affairs, alcohol, owning a car and other possessions! Probably one of my favorite groups during this period.
Bellemou may have been the King of the Raï movement, but Sghir is the Godfather! One of the precursors of the modern Raï movement coming out of the traditional chant roots and griot style and many a influence to the 'cheb' and 'chebas'. He was most definitely one of Bellemous influencesand a precursor of the old styles of Raï which consisted of the styles of al-andalus (Spanish guitar influence) and many other derivatives and could have accidently found out that psych fuzz by accident. Oh Well!
And along with the Raï - a few notable mentions to the amazing shit that I have picked up along the way from the great music of that region including...
Groupe Azenzar - (Nekwini) s iyennaten agi...
Group Azenzar were an Algerian Raï-Psych Pop band with styles that range the spectrum of influences from the Muzik Komische period to the American Go-Go and French Yé-yé styles.They were mainly hot groovy Arabian folk written tracks with heavy percussion, Middle Eastern guitar, electric bass, organ and great voices, lyrics sung in Berber. They were exactly like the Turkish psych equivalent of Mogoller. The clip is taken from a French independent film 'Les Taxicomane' - about a Alegrian youth who struggles to work by day in a restaurant and evening as a cab driver. the following tune is called Smaïl Chenoun by Groupe Azenzar.
Les Abranis - Self-Titled
For a more western outlook but more of the french psych influence of people like J.P Massiera and Jean-Claude Vannier you have Les Abranis - a young group of psych kids into fuzz cheesy pop and go-go style videos. I like this one...There's something cool about it but everything else just seemed to be quite bland to me...
