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Raï, Oriental Pop Music
Khaled
| Algeria
Booking-Agent:
Frank Abraham
+49 30 261032920
fa@f-cat.de
"HIS SMILE IS CONTAGIOUS, HIS MUSIC ENCHANTING… RECOGNISED INTERNATIONALLY, AS THE IRREFUTABLE KING OF RAI"
It’s a statement that’s beyond doubt or question. With his unforgettable voice and huge smile, Khaled is raï. He helped transform the raw music in his native Algeria, and then went on to make it a part of the global music scene. And with 10 diamond, platinum, and gold albums, as well as the highest-selling Arab album in history (123 Soleils), he’s the star all other raï singers aspire to be.
Khaled was born in 1960 in Oran, Algeria, the home of raï, and he was singing on the streets of the city with his first group, the Five Stars, by the time he was 10. At 14 he’d graduated to the more lucrative circuit of wedding and circumcision ceremonies (the only places, outside nightclubs, where raï was acceptable). While singing at a wedding, he was heard by a producer who took the teenager into a studio to record his first song, “Trigue Lycée.” Full of youthful exuberance about skipping classes and watching girls, it became a smash, offering a fresh young perspective of the kind that had never been heard before in Algeria.
By the mid-‘70s Cheb (or Kid) Khaled had already become a star in Algeria, his raï cassettes immensely popular with a young generation. Raï translates literally as ‘opinion,’ and Khaled’s opinions reflected those of his contemporaries, many of whom desired more social freedom. His forthright attitudes to women, alcohol, and life, upset the conservative establishment in Algeria, and Khaled – like other artists who followed his lead – received no airplay on radio or television. His rhythms and words were simply too erotic and dangerous to be sanctioned.
Rai has origins in Bedouin oral traditions, in the music of Berbers who moved from the Algerian mountains to the cities of Oran and Algiers, and in Andalusian music that came to North African ports after the Moors were thrown out of Spain in 1492. By the 1930s, these elements had coalesced in a style called wahrani championed by cheikhas—female singers—in the bars of Algeria's "Little Paris," the coastal city of Oran. Cheikhas like the great Cheikha Rimitti voiced the complaints of working class people in French colonial Algeria, upsetting officials. They also sang openly about sex, upsetting conservatives. It wasn’t the music of polite society, and it stayed for the most part in the tawdry cabarets and clubs. But there was no stopping the rai movement. The terms cheb and chebba--young man and young woman--put an informal spin on the more dignified musical honorifics cheikh and cheikha of wahrani music.
This was the sound Khaled came to. It was acoustic and heavily percussive, sweetened by the accordion, an instrument brought to Algeria by the French colonizers. The music, as befitted its lyrics, was rough and ragged. But it was changing, and Khaled was part of the vanguard that altered raï forever.
Khaled might not have been heard on radio or TV, but he wasn’t about to let opposition stop him from becoming a major figure. The real turning point came when he teamed with the visionary producer Rachid Baba Ahmed in the early ‘80s. Ahmed was the modernizer of raï, bringing in Western instruments, such as bass, synthesizers, and drum machines, and completely transforming the music. He worked with a new generation of singers, including Khaled and the diva Cheba Fadela, and the results were nothing less than a revolution. Together they electrified raï, creating the genre that became known as ‘pop raï,’ and Khaled became the music’s glittering idol in his homeland.
In 1985, Khaled helped organized the first Festival of Raï in Algeria, a huge success that legitimized the music so often treated with contempt. But shortly after, in part to escape the escalating violence in Algeria, and also to let his music develop, he moved to France. There his career truly began to blossom, although it took several years of work and development, and several cassette releases before he was truly ready for the international scene. In 1992, Khaled soared still higher with N’ssi N’ssi (co-produced by Don Was), which mixed his glorious raï with thick funk and rock to cross him into the French mainstream. The song “Didi” (originally released on 1991’s Khaled) became the first raï hit in France, and broke the genre onto the world music scene.
It was the first step, albeit a giant one. What Khaled needed was to build on that, and cement his stature and popularity. That came fully with 1996’s Sahra (an album named for his daughter). It established him as a major international star, while the single “Aïcha” being the biggest of the year in France. It went number one in other European markets, too, such as Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. The album took Khaled’s music to another level. Not only did he refine the framework he’d built, he also traveled to Jamaica to record with reggae musicians (including Bob Marley’s backing singers, the I-Threes, and members of the Wailers), with a crossover that worked perfectly, as two rebel musicians who came together as one.
After the release of Sahra Khaled started to tour extensively in France but also all over Europe, where he played headliner tours in big venues.
If anyone still had doubts that Khaled was truly the King of Raï, proof positive came in 1998 with 1,2,3 Soleils . The landmark sell-out concert in Paris – the first major event with an all-Algerian bill - featured Khaled, along with Rachid Taha and Faudel, performing career hits. Khaled effortlessly stole the show with his charismatic presence and remarkable singing voice, quite obviously reveling in the delight of the packed audience. It was a show that established his majesty and stature beyond question. His command of the crowd was absolute, his assurance total – Khaled was regal. The question was, how could he follow that?
The answer came in 2000, with Kenza (named for his other daughter). It pushed the boundaries of Khaled’s music even further. Rich Egyptian strings, arranged by Steve Hillage, merged with booming, pulsing American funk as Khaled leaped into the new Millennium on his most fulfilled album to date, continuing a magnificent artistic progression. Not only did he show he was still at the top of his vocal game, he also roared his creativity as an artist, staying ahead of the pack.
In 2004 was released Ya Rayi, which features the reunion of Khaled with the Grammy award winning producer Don Was on the song Ya Rayi. Being more acoustic than the previous ones the album brings Khaled back to his roots of raï. A large acoustic part was added to the live performance, and as a consequence, Khaled played in theatres and classical music halls.
The pretenders to the throne come and go; some stay around. But KHALED remains the ruler, a man who loves his music, who preaches peace, and whose voice means raï to the world.
In September 2006, Khaled recorded the soundtrack to Rachid Bouchareb's award-winning film "Indigènes." The Rai star headed out to Oran seeking inspiration for his film compositions and revisited the cabarets where he had launched his career. This experience gave Khaled the idea of working on a new album much more in keeping with his Rai roots. "Liberté" (Freedom), an album released on 30 March 2009 (three years after the singer's trip to Oran) found him moving away from the rhythm boxes and synthesisers of his recent career and going back to more of an acoustic sound.
"Liberté" was recorded under live conditions in the studio with the musicians who have accompanied Khaled for over thirty years now. Many of the tracks on "Liberté" feature an Egyptian string section (specially recorded in Cairo) which adds an intensely melodic touch. Khaled delved deep into the past on "Liberté", digging out several of his old classics such as "Raïkoum." But the most outstanding feature of this new album was the reinstatement of the "intros", the long scene-setting preludes during which Khaled's expertly modulated voice introduces the theme of each song in Oranese dialect.
On 15 May 2009, Khaled returned to play at the Olympia, in Paris. This concert was the first in an extensive tour which includes dates in Algiers, Nancy, Zurich and Luxembourg (where Khaled now lives.)
