[FA Worldmusic] Rachid Taha

Tue Jul 15 19:53:01 ADT 2008

Here's the great review by my fave NY Times World Music Critic about 
Rashid's recent SummerStage performance along with Dengue Fever --

I should add, Steve, that Rashid Taha owes so much to Algeria's great, 
incomparable Khaled and many others including Cheikha Remitti - but as we 
seem to agree here on this listserv that there's little time for long lists, 
I desist.

Best,
Evangeline

ps -- Highly recommend, Steve, that you delve into www.Afropop.org for 
incredibly great, scholarly research and info about Algeria's wonderful 
music, history and leading stars.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

July 7, 2008
Music Review | Rachid Taha
Algerian Singer Mixes Rock and Rai
By JON PARELES
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, hard-grooving versions of 
songs using fuzz-toned guitar riffs over a dance beat.

He wore a leather fedora, then switched to a red cowboy hat. He dumped a 
bottle of water onto audience members - redundant, since it was raining - 
and onto his own head. He twirled his microphone on its cord, joked about 
Ecstasy and cocaine and was less than reverent when handed a flag. For his 
encore the band vamped and chanted, "Get up, get up," and the star 
declaimed, "My name is James Brown! My name is Marvin Gaye!" But his other 
songs were serious: reflections on exile and cultural strife.

The star was Rachid Taha, an Algerian now based in France. Mr. Taha is the 
most rock-influenced of Algerian rai singers, who mix Arabic and North 
African elements with Western ones; he has collaborated with British 
musicians including Brian Eno, Steve Hillage and Robert Plant. At 
SummerStage his songs dipped into hard rock, reggae, rumba-pop and Bo 
Diddley, but often they used Arabic-style beats defined by the hand drum 
called a darbuka, and Mr. Taha's voice was answered by oud solos.

Rai's blunt lyrics have made it both popular and persecuted in Algeria, 
while in France the music has become a voice for Arab-speaking immigrants. 
(Mr. Taha had a band in the 1980s called Carte de Sijour, or "residence 
permit.") One of Mr. Taha's hits, and an extended centerpiece at his 
SummerStage show, was "Ya Rayah" ("Party"), an old Algerian song about 
emigration and the longing for home, which began with an unmetered, 
tradition-tinged introduction before the beat kicked in.

Mr. Taha has just released a greatest-hits album in the United States, 
"Rachid Taha: The Definitive Collection (Wrasse), and he sang some of them, 
including "Rock el Casbah," his precise Arabic translation of the Clash's 
"Rock the Casbah," a song about rock as banned but unstoppable music. Mr. 
Taha was having fun onstage while the crowd danced under umbrellas, but his 
rowdy party was also making his point.

Sharing the bill was Dengue Fever, a band from Los Angeles with a Cambodian 
lead singer, Chhom Nimol. Dengue Fever started out as 21st-century fans of 
1960s Cambodian rock, which melded psychedelia with Cambodian melodies. 
Decades later it's an East-West hybrid that twists its retro familiarity - 
tootling electric organ, surf-rock electric guitar and saxophone - with 
melodies in five-note Asian scales. Onstage the clear-voiced Ms. Nimol 
danced with Southeast Asian wrist curlicues and a go-go dancer's hip 
swivels.

Dengue Fever's repertory mixes old Cambodian songs, new ones that are also 
sung in Khmer and a few in English, like one performed at SummerStage about 
a shaky transoceanic romance via e-mail. For all their vintage 
underpinnings, the songs didn't sound antiquarian or campy - just sweet, 
tart and ingenious.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hochman" <shochman at pacbell.net>
To: "Sasa Music" <rab at sasa.demon.co.uk>
Cc: "FAworld music list" <fa-worldmusic at folk.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 2:26 PM
Subject: Re: [FA Worldmusic] Rachid Taha

> well, of course it's subjective, but I just think Rachid's
> internalizing of the vast scope of music he embraces stands as unique.
> As I say at the end, maybe Caetano Veloso is comparable... but of
> major figures (and Rachid is unquestionably a star in the Algerian/
> North African community) I can't think of anyone else.
>
>
>
> Around the World
> http://www.spinner.com/category/around-the-world/
>
>
> On Jul 15, 2008, at 11:15 AM, Sasa Music wrote:
>
>> Too many to mention! I'm not starting one of those 'women singers'
>> lists
>> that was run recently !
>>
>> And sadly Rachid isn't a superstar, much as we might like him to be. I
>> always thought he could be a 'breakthrough artist'. Probably doesn't
>> even
>> want to be...too much of a maverick?
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>>> names, please! people at Taha's superstar level in particular...
>>>
>>>
>>> Around the World
>>> http://www.spinner.com/category/around-the-world/
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jul 15, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Sasa Music wrote:
>>>
>>>> In answer to your question, yes, loads!
>>>>
>>>> David Flower
>>>>
>>>>> Is there any artist in America or Europe who has covered the
>>>>> scope of
>>>>> his or her culture's music to the extent that Rachid Taha has with
>>>>> the
>>>>> wide range of sounds from Algeria/North Africa and its diaspora?
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.spinner.com/2008/07/15/rachid-tahas-music-is-a-world-in-itself/
>>>>>
>>>>> His L.A. show was typically spectacular....
>>>>>
>>>>> share and enjoy!
>>>>>
>>>>> Steve
>>>>> Around the World
>>>>> http://www.spinner.com/category/around-the-world/
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> FA-Worldmusic mailing list
>>>>> FA-Worldmusic at folk.org
>>>>> http://www.folkserv.net/mailman/listinfo/fa-worldmusic
> _______________________________________________
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