[FA Worldmusic] Rachid Taha

Tue Jul 15 21:41:46 ADT 2008

Evangaline, thanks for the tip... I'm quite, quite aware of Khaled,
Cheikha Remitti and much else in Algerian music... this piece, though,
was not the context to get into all that. I certainly was not trying
to imply that he existed in a vacuum... in fact I mentioned several
crucial artists to whom he pays tribute...

and I am also quite familiar with the great work at Afropop.org.

Around the World
http://www.spinner.com/category/around-the-world/

On Jul 15, 2008, at 3:53 PM, Evangeline Kim wrote:

> 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
----------------------
>
>
> ----- 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/
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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