Every bit the people's music as much as punk or hip-hop, raï has been flourishing for decades, even after post-colonial Marxist governments pushed it underground. Sublime Frequencies' vinyl-only ...

In the 1930s no respectable Algerian woman dared to make music about sexual pleasure, alcohol consumption, poverty, oppression. Cheikha Rimitti sang anyway. The artist, whose pioneering recordings ...

In the 1980s, Algeria experienced a tumultuous social context which reached its peak during the riots of October 88. This wave of protest, with youth as its figurehead, echoed the texts of raï singers ...

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 ...

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 ...

Earlier this week in Rabat, Unesco examined applications featuring the French baguette, Algerian raï, Serbian “slivo” and Tunisian harissa to decide whether they should be included on the list of ...

This issue is preventing our website from loading properly. Please review the following troubleshooting tips or contact us at [email protected]. The Middle East Channel: Khaled and the myth of rai ...

An old-school rock star headlined SummerStage in Central Park on Saturday afternoon. Grinning and unshaven, he strutted around the stage, sang in a knowing growl and cued his band for extended, ...

Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1135764/135764" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> NPR's ...