Rai

In the 1920's groups of rural migrants "brought their native musical styles into the growing urban centers of northwestern Algeria," (Gross, McMurray, and Swedenberg p. 200). Their pulsating groves and concordant dance moves took root in the then-liberal port town of Oran, and it was soon to make waves on distant and foreign shores. Yet right from the start, the music represented the underrepresented: the peasants, the prostitutes, and the poor. Sang in the Orani language by female vocalists, early rai music was already a synthesis of a variety of tribal cultural traditions before it became blended with urban Algerian sounds and sentiments. Rai combined risque lyrics and dancing on top of its solid musical foundation. These harbingers of world music soon integrated the urban Algerian sounds, styles and personas into their already complex rural genre. Rai was, and remains, as much a cultural and political expression as a...
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