TEACH KIDS ABOUT ALGERIA: The Music Of Algeria
INTRODUCING ALGERIA
Hadj Mohamed Tahar Fergani is an Algerian violinist, composer and singer most known for performing malouf, a genre of Arabic classical music popular in North Africa. Malouf, a term that means “familiar” or “customary,” is performed by small orchestras composed of violins drums, sitars and flutes. Musicologists believe it originated in Baghdad in the 9th century but traveled westward with its founder, a famed court musician — and astronomer, geographer, meteorologist, botanist and chef — nicknamed Ziryab (“nightingale”) when he fell out of favor in the Baghdadi court and moved to Andalusia, in Spain.
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— El Hachemi Guerouabi:
Respected Algerian performer of Algerian chaabi, an Arabic/Berber form of North African music that first appeared in the 19th century, mixing Berber and Andalusian (Spanish) lyrical themes and scales.
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— Zaho:
Zaho (Zehira Darabid) is an R&B/pop singer who was born and raised in Algeria, where she became a devoted fan of Bob-Dylan-inspired Algerian folk singer-songwriter Francis Cabrel. When she was 18 she emigrated to Montreal and has become one of the most prominent Algerian-Canadian musicians.
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— Souad Massi:
Massi is an Algerian singer/songwriter and activist based in France. As a youth she studied Arabic-Andalusian classical music but first became known for performing all over Algeria with a Kabyle (Berber) hard rock band, Atakor. After her socially conscious, anti-fundamenalist music drew the ire of local religious leaders she relocated to Paris where she has continued both her performing and her activism.
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— Khaled:
Khaled Hadj Ibrahim, aka “Khaled,” is known worldwide as the “King of Rai.” Born in 1960 and raised in the Oran province of Algeria, Khaled hit his musical stride in the 1980s as a leading pioneer of modern Rai music. He became a global artist in 1993 when his song “Didi” became a massive international hit, inspiring remakes in dozens of languages. He has since sold over 80 million albums. That’s a lot!
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Rachid Taha is an Algerian-born rai/rock/electronica/punk artist who adventurously fuses many styles of music to create a French-Arabic-North African global sound.
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— Takfarinas is the stage name of Ḥsen [Hassen] Zermani, an Alerigan/Berber “Yal” artist currently based in France. Zerman‘s main traditional instruments, beyond his flexible voice, is the “takfa,” a lute that he has modified by adding a second fretboard (neck). “Takfarinas” is the name of an ancient Berber warrior (Tacfarinas) who fought the Romans when they had a presence North Africa.
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Menguellet is an Algerian Berber singer-songwriter whose Kabyle-language songs have become increasingly more socially conscious as Berber/Kabyle people in Algeria have become more unified in their struggle for cultural and political recognition.
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— Houria Aichi
Aichi is a Berber-Chaouia musician from the North-Eastern Algerian Aurès plateau. Based in France, she performs traditional Berber music and accompanies herself on a bendir. Read an interview with Aichi in which she explains how and why women have become primary culture-bearers in Berber Algeria.
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— Kamel Messaoudi
An Algerian Berber artist born in 1961 and raised in a suburb of Algiers, Messauodi was a popular chaabi artist at the time of the 1998 car accident that took his life.
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— El Hadj Mohamed El Anka
El Anka was a grand master of Andalusian-Arabic classical music and a pioneer of Algerian chaabi. Over the several decades of his mid-20th century career he wrote and recorded hundreds of songs that became popular in Northern Africa through newly available media of records and radio.
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— Idir
Born Hamid Cheriet, the Algerian-Berber composer known by the stage name “Idir” is a beloved Kabyle musician and activist. He has recorded with, and written songs that have been popularized by, internationally known artists like Kahled, Zaho and Manu Chao.
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