The recent death of French Algerian superstar Rachid Taha brought to mind the musical genre called raï, so I decided to feature it this week by highlighting a few raï artists.… It’s not hard to ...

Raï music, arguably the most popular music style in the Middle East today, originated in the Algerian port city of Oran. By Billboard Staff RELEASE DATE: Nov. 26 Raï music, arguably the most popular ...

Raucous, expressive and revolutionary: Algeria's Rai music took its place on the United Nations' list of intangible cultural heritage on Thursday. "New inscription on the #IntangibleHeritage List: Rai ...

When Algeria made an official application to include rai, a folk music genre, on the UNESCO Intangible Heritage List, it irked its rival across the border, Morocco. Now a soft war looms for the heart ...

Cheikha Rimitti, who has died suddenly in Paris at the age of 83, was one of the true legends of the Algerian Rai music scene, and one of the greatest female singers of the Islamic world. She had just ...

Spawned from the country’s diverse and politically turbulent history, Rai music has transcended national boundaries Abu Dhabi: When the world thinks of Algeria, a few things come to mind: a long and ...

In the 1930s no respectable Algerian woman dared to make music about sexual pleasure, alcohol consumption, poverty, oppression. Cheikha Rimitti sang anyway. The artist, whose pioneering recordings ...

For the second year in a row, the international festival of Rai music took place in Oujda, Morocco, at the end of July. Some thirty bands performed and nearly 400,000 people enjoyed a colourfully rich ...

Take the expressive nature of Arabic music, its songs of love, its rhythmic percussion and add some strong opinions in the lyrics. What do you get? Well, it can only be the entertaining rhythms of Rai ...