Cheb Mami

Born Khelifati Mohamed and later known as “the Prince of Rai,” Cheb Mami fuses the traditional music of Algeria with Spanish, Moroccan, French, and Arabic elements to produce dance-driven tracks. An ARK 21 press release characterized his sound as “Arabic rock & roll retaining virtues of traditional music but infused with urban urgency.” In a review of the 1999 album Meli Meli, CMJ New Music Report observed, “As perhaps rai’s most popular vocalist, Cheb Mami is one of the leaders of the pack, turning the genre into a futuristic dance/funk hybrid with the power to pack the dancefloors of North Africa, Paris, and New York.”

A native of the small southwestern Algerian village of Saida, Cheb Mami first drew notice for his soulful voice while still in his early teens, finishing second in a 1971 talent contest staged by Ihan Wa Chabab. Although several cassettes he recorded during the 1980s enjoyed local success, they yielded little financial return. Disillusioned with the domestic industry and after completing a period of military service, he moved to Paris upon his discharge in 1975. His 1989 release, the first album to reach international markets, The Prince of Rai, established him among the leading figures in rai, a position he reinforced by continually expanding the tradition’s boundaries. On Meli Meli he duetted with Alliance Ethnique rapper K-Mel on “Parisian du Nord,” while the title track’s remix enlisted Gordon Cyrus, known for work with Neneh Cherry and Massive Attack, alongside Soul II Soul’s Simon Law.

The new century brought a decisive breakthrough when Sting invited Mami to share the mainstream hit “Desert Rose,” marking the first recorded pairing of a Western singer and an Eastern artist. Free of earlier industry constraints, Mami issued Dellali in 2001.