^ I never thought anyone would ever subscribe, glad my journal is being read.
I- My beginnings in music 3.0
To the next year now, I'm 9 years old and it's 1999. We discovered mp3s this year, a lot of audio CDs and a lot of mixed discs, scattered around the house till this very day.
I remember falling in love with contemporary Arabic music, there was still no internet here (at least cell phones were already introduced), so radio was our only source of music, plus the newly opened Virgin MegaStore (the first and only media megastore), so many randomly bought audio CDs.
So let's move to my first discovery that year:
Raï Music.
I still enjoy the late 90s tracks I used to listen to, don't enjoy much of the later songs as the great Raï artists got more and more into the French scene, and the original Raï music has gotten more and more undetectable covered by generic French pop, hip-hop and R n'B (called Raï n'B - whatever this means).
So let's explain what Raï is before we begin,
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Quote:
Raï (English pronunciation: /ˈraɪ/; Arabic: راي) is a form of folk music that originated in Oran, 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 literally means opinion but is colloquially used as an interjection along the lines of "oh, yeah!"
Singers of raï are called cheb (shabb, young) as opposed to sheikh (shaykh, old), the name given to Chaabi singers. The tradition arose in cities like Oran, Relizane and Mostaganem, primarily among the poor. Traditionally sung by men, at the turn of the 20th century, female singers became common. Raï musicians as early as the 1930s were singing about social issues which affected native populations. These ranged from disease to the policing of European colonies.
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There was a big Raï hype this year in many places in the world, and especially in Lebanon, it was the music of the year, but it was really good music. Even all local artists had minimum one track featuring one of the best Raï artists then, and that made local music very much enjoyable. However, I'll begin with the Raï artists, before I move to the many contributions around the world.
All the hype began, when 3 Raï artists, considered as the best, joined to make a concert together. It was the
1, 2, 3, Soleil concert performed at Bercy-Paris, France in 1998; an album of the concert was released a year later. Here's a song from that concert, it's
Abdel Qader, sang by Rachid Taha, Cheb Khaled and Faudel.
I have many favorite artists from then, as i do love that kind of music pretty passionately. So I decided to make this journal entry entirely dedicated to that genre, as the rest of it (that will be in another entry, some time later) is also pretty charged.
So I'll begin with my favorite tracks by the artists mentioned above.
From
Faudel, comes this real beauty, the song that first introduced me to this singer. You can notice the mix of languages, like just in the title there's a French word "tellement" with an Arabic word, specially Algerian term, "nebghik" (meaning "love you") which is a very usual thing in this genre. The mix of languages is found in almost all Raï songs... so the title
tellement nebghik is roughly translated to "I love you so much".
From
Cheb Khaled, considered the King of Raï, the very known song
Aicha. I used to love this song, even sang it in some school karaoke event, but now it has become so cliché it can get annoying some times, but still very great song. It was even covered by an American boys band some few years ago, it was an ugly
ugly cover song. Here's the original:
And another very lovely song, that dates from the 1992:
From my favorite of them all,
Rachid Taha, just love the guy, love his voice, and specially his presence on stage, he even performed with Robert Plant, Patti Smith and Brian Eno, in 2005. Plus this song, is just the greatest. From the opening with the traditional Goblet drum (an instrument I then passionately loved, and the first instrument I ever played), then the oud that just enters and gives the whole spark to that song, and finally the roaring voice of Taha that just seals the deal. You better enjoy,
Ya Rayeh (as in addressing the emigrant with "Hey, goer", just sublime:
Now to show the Raï that was just spread to the world, here's some contributions by the many artists with artists from all around the world.
Beginning with a great song, released in 1999 also, a collaboration between
Sting and
Cheb Mami, I'm obviously talking about
Desert Rose. I used to know Mami then, but I had never heard of Sting, I think these collaborations were the first bridges that got me to the occidental world. And here's the song, that just sums up the true spirit of the desert, so much better than this whole collection of Paulo Cuelho Sahara fever books:
And another song, this time between Faudel and a local singer called Amal Hegazy (there's not much to that female singer, but I guess this song is a perfect example of the 90s local pop scene that got injected with a big dose of Raï)
This song is called
E'inak, as in "your eye":
-Conclusion-
Getting a bit off of Raï for the end of the entry, for a conclusion of this part of 1999. With all the Arabic artists, after this whole Raï hype, have also began collaborating with American artists. Some examples of this side of the loved then contemporary Arabic music. I'll post a couple of songs, that have been released as hidden tracks or special remixed tracks in the album, that meant the world to our deluded population. I won't be talking about them, they will be just here for you to enjoy:
First, a collaboration of the American rapper, Foxy Brown with the Lebanese singer Ragheb Alama, on of my favorite tracks of that year (weirdly enough, I don't think that song has a title or even got released somewhere):
Another one would be, the duo between Chris Deburgh and another Lebanese singer, this time called Elissa, with a song called
Lebanese night. So it was obviously a big event for us, thinking that Elissa's going to be this whole universal star, but I don't think anyone heard of that song outside this country. Here we go:
Finally, I wanted to post a track of an official remix of a Ricky Martin song called
One night man by a local DJ called Hany Siblini, which is a lot better than the original, but doesn't seem to be available anywhere on the net (or an info about it, like it was all a part of my imagination). I do have it on an original album I purchased then, just to have this song in specific. I would be able to upload it later, just needs a bit of work to see where the album is.
P.S: There are a LOT of other Raï artists that I forgot or that I just never heard of, these are just some of the songs and the artists that were a part of my life.
Be free to ask any question, if anyone needed more info, about these kind of artists, or if anyone has something to edit, cause I have to admit that I might be doing some presumptions on parts.