Raï Is Not Dead

What musical genre can claim to have gone, in the space of fifty years, from a hidden cabaret in Oran to Super Bowl halftime? Born in Algeria at the end of the Second World War, the raï wave spread from the cabarets of western Algeria to the cassette shops of Barbès in Paris, before sweeping the world at the end of the 1980s. its hybridization, the intoxicating music traveled from Algerian and French weddings to the biggest international stages, before suddenly disappearing from the radar at the dawn of the new millennium. Icons that have disappeared, including Cheikha Remitti and Prince Hasni, to young heirs, passing by the star Khaled, the collector Hadj Sameer trace the tumultuous course of this musical genre, between clandestinity, planetary glory and resistance.

Cast

Hadj Sameer

Self (Host)

Cheb Khaled

Self

Cheb Hasni

Self (archive footage)

Rachid Baba Ahmed

Self (archive footage)

Cheikha Remitti

Self (archive footage)

Boutaïba Seghir

Self

Cheb Mami

Self (archive footage)

Lotfi Attar

Self

Chaba Fadela

Self

Messaoud Bellemou

Self