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Album review
Khaled
Ya-Rayi
Paris
17/09/2004 -
RFI Musique: As far as the production side of Ya-Rayi goes, you appear to have stuck to working with people you already knew...
Khaled : Yes, that's true. I have worked with them all before. My friend Philippe Eidel was very much involved in the making of Ya-Rayi. I'd already made two albums with him before, including Didi. One of my main aims this time round was to work with people I'd recorded hits with in the past. In this business, you can end up getting a bit superstitious, you know !
Do you think it's fair to describe your new album as a return to the roots of Arab music ?
Well, it was actually the boss of my record company who persuaded me to record a series of old châabi hits from Algiers. This is the first time in my career I've ever tackled songs like this and I took the whole thing very seriously. Châabi's a completely different world to Raï. There was one absolute maestro when it comes to châabi and that was the late Cheikh El Hadj Mohamed El Anka. All the great châabi singers passed through his school and I wanted to pay tribute to him on this album. With Mani Hani, the first song on the album, I told Philippe Eidel I wanted to have a sort of 'ping-pong' effect, you know, have part of the song in French ricocheting off the other part of the song in Arabic – just like it was when Algeria was a colony ! Back in those days we didn't just speak in Arabic. The wonderful thing about the songs of the time is the way the two languages weave in and out of one another. So, yes, the new album is about going back to my music roots, back to the days of the colonies.
It's funny you should say that because certain tracks on Ya-Rayi do have a distinctly old-fashioned flavour. Some songs sound as if they've been recorded by an old 60s crooner...
Yes, and I think that's exactly what gives the album its charm. If you listen closely to the first albums recorded by singers from Oran, you'll find a lot of songs that use the same style of intonation. I'm thinking of people like Blaoui, Blanc Blanc, Maurice El Medioni, and even Enrico Macias with his maalouf from Constantine. Anyway, I managed to get Blaoui and Medioni together to record the first song on my album. And it was the first time they'd seen each other for forty years! The thing is, Blaoui lives in Algeria, but Medioni lives in Marseilles. And let me tell you, it was such an emotional moment that Blaoui nearly passed out when he saw Medioni walk into the room!
Ya-Rayi, the title track on the album, has a very different feel to the retro flavour of other songs...
Well, I decided to throw in something a bit different. I originally wanted to work with Doctor Dre, but he wasn't free, so I got in touch with my old mate Don Was. He'd already done three albums with me. I knew if there was anyone out there who really understood my music it was him! We're great friends, you know, like brothers. Anyway, Don was already hard at work producing the Rolling Stones' next album, but he asked Mick Jagger if he could take a week off to do a track for me. Mick was OK about that, but the problem wasn't solved because I found out it was going to take at least two weeks to get a visa for the States. So I decided to have my manager fly out to Los Angeles with the tapes and see whether Don thought we could work together over the Internet. Don looked into things and got back to me, saying 'OK we can try!' So I found this studio in Paris equipped for that and we got straight down to business. We communicated via a webcam and sent music files to each other, but it was a bit heavy going because stuff would arrive in bits. It took up to eight or nine hours to receive a complete file! But I think the overall sound worked really well. I even had a bit of fun messing around playing synthesiser and when Don saw me on the webcam he was like, 'You're crazy, you're the one who should play on this track !' It was a brilliant experience and a totally original way of working. Don asked around all the studios in L.A. to see whether anyone else had worked like us before, but we found out we were the first people to do it! Ya-Rayi was recorded in cyber-space !
You can't seem to have stopped yourself from experimenting with a new blend of Raï fusion on the album with the track Zine Zina, recorded with zouk star Jacob Desvarieux...
I like Jacob a lot and I've been listening to his music for a long time now. I actually performed live with his group Kassav when they played their 20th anniversary concert at Bercy stadium (in Paris). And since then Jacob's got in touch with me a lot, proposing songs to me. I'm a big fan of zouk, I love the way it gets you straight up on your feet dancing. It's like my Raï, it's the same style of feel-good party music. There's not really any difference between zouk and Raï, in fact. Both styles of music come from Africa – I mean, they're not exactly white over in the Antilles! Jacob Desvarieux was really happy when I sent him Zine Zina with the message, 'Use my music as a basis, then I'll take yours!' When he sent me back his version of the song the next day I was really surprised. I said to myself, 'Wow, this is gnawa, real Moroccan music, music from my Algerian Sahara, total trance stuff!' It sounded so familiar.
With Raï and châabi playing back to back on your new album, do you think the musical rivalry between Algiers and Oran is finally over now ?
Well, it's a bit like Paris and Marseilles, you know. Over in Oran we're the laidback party crowd, but in Algiers people are always taking to the street protesting and defending their rights. It's the capital. But back in the days when the terrorists were launching attacks, friends from Algiers would come and take a holiday at my place. They'd call up and say, 'I'm coming to have a bit of a break in Switzerland !' Because that's what Oran was for them, Switzerland !
Khaled Ya-Rayi (AZ-Universal) 2004
Pierre René-Worms
Translation : Julie Street
21/10/2002 -
06/03/2002 -
