The Pop Corporation

You don’t have to speak the language to love a style of music. Maybe you are fluent in French, but no matter, because the fact is that Algeria’s Raï music is some of the most joyous and brilliant stuff ever recorded.

It is a form of Algerian folk that kicked off in the ’20s and talked about societal issues and hit out against colonialism, and had something of a boom in the ’80s.

Here’s one of our favourite tracks.

If you liked that, then good news!

There’s a new documentary on YouTube that you can watch which looks at the history of it and shows that it is alive and well in North Africa. It’s a six parter and you can watch it for free, which is just magnificent. Now, it is presented in French, but you shouldn’t let that stop you and you can get the captions on if you prefer.

It’s called ‘Raï is not dead’ and goes through the record collection of the film creator Hadj Sameer. They tell the story of Raï, saying: “I’ve tried to highlight the underground scenes of Raï music, from its early tribal steps up to the most recent modern variations.”