On the Origins of Pop Rai

In this paper, I examine the emergence of pop rai in western Algeria during the 1970s and the subsequent transformation of rai into a very different sound, and a national and international phenomenon. The study is based in part on an analysis of previously hard-to-find pop rai recordings now available on the internet. Pop rai’s origins are in the rural music of the male performers of bédoui music and particularly the female cheikhat. After independence, constraints were imposed on female performances, and so, during the 1960s, male singers, most famously Belkacem Bouteldja, began to record a modern version of the cheikhat repertoire. Messaoud Bellemou, a trumpet player from the city of Aïn Témouchent, played a major role in the further development of the music; he created an ensemble that included singers like Boutaïba Sghir, Belkacem Bouteldja, Hamani Hadjoum and Younes Benfissa, that modernized the instrumental backing and overall sound of western Algeria’s local folkloric music, and thereby created the genre known as pop rai. Other artists who played a role in the development of pop rai include the Oran-based Chaba Fadela, who started her career with Bellemou’s group, Cheb Khaled, and Groupe El Azhar; and from Sidi Bel Abbès, guitarist and singer Ahmed Zergui. During the 1980s, rai music became national, and producer Rachid Baba Ahmed of Tlemcen further modernized its sound through the use of electronic keyboards. By the late 1980s, rai had become international, a new generation of artists had emerged, and the ensembles and artists that forged pop rai in the 1970s were displaced. Today those artists are largely forgotten, and this critical period in the history of rai remains seriously understudied.