Rachid Taha

Algerian singer and songwriter Rachid Taha earned legendary status as a defiant icon in his adopted homeland of France through a singular fusion of rai and chaabi roots, fierce punk drive, and defiant rock & roll spirit. He entered the world in Sig, within Mascara Province, Algeria, in 1958, then moved with his family to France when he reached the age of ten. During the 1970s, while employed at a heating factory, Taha established the nightclub Les Refoules, where Arabic pop tracks were blended live with selections from Led Zeppelin and Kraftwerk. In 1980 he assembled the Maghreb punk group Carte de Sejour, which issued the albums Rhorhomanie and Ramsa and gained attention for its insurgent reinterpretation of Charles Trénet’s “Douce France,” before the band dissolved in 1989. Taha began his solo work two years afterward with the album Barbes, yet reached peak acclaim via the 1998 release Diwan, steeped in traditional Algerian and Arab sounds, and 2004’s Tekitoi, both shaped by longtime associate Steve Hillier. He has shared stages with Robert Plant, Patti Smith, and Brian Eno, joined Damon Albarn’s Africa Express project in live settings, and recorded a version of the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” for the Joe Strummer documentary The Future Is Unwritten; tracks of his have also surfaced in the films Black Hawk Down and The Truth About Charlie.