Sidi Bel Abbès's electric raï
Raïna Raï
Raïna Raï came out of Sidi Bel Abbès in western Algeria at the start of the 1980s. Guitarist Lotfi Attar, keyboardist Tarik Chikhi, Kaddour Bouchentouf and Hachemi Djellouli, soon joined by singer Djilali Amarna, set out to electrify raï, mixing it with gnawa rhythms and the Western pop and rock Attar had been playing since the late 1960s. Their albums, from the 1982 debut through Hagda, Rana Hna, Mama and Zaama, took them on tours of Europe and North America, and their music turned up in Claude Berri's 1983 film Tchao Pantin. The band split in the early 1990s and reunited in 2011. Amarna died in 2010, and Chikhi in 2019.
Bombay Café