*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Rock El Casbah*

Hello, and welcome to this الوضع Status Hour podcast. 

This program is entitled “Dispatches from Medina Post-Coloniale: a final conversation with Rachid Taha”. 

My name is Omar Shanti and I will be our host for the next hour as we look back on the raucous, rebellious, and symbolically rich life of the late Rachid Taha.

On this first year anniversary of his death, we’ll be remembering his 40-year career, and revisiting his repertoire to explore  his messages as an artist, a thinker, and an activist, across time. 

We’ll be situating this analysis primarily within a post-colonial framework and reading his works for themes including citizenship and identity, language and genre, and assertion and assimilation, as they confront the subaltern immigrant. 

To do so, we’ll listen to excerpts of songs and discuss album artwork, situating both against their cultural and political backdrops. We’ll also listen to a never-before published interview with Rachid, which was conducted in May 2018 - only 4 months before his untimely death. The interview provides vivid recollections on past works, gripping insights for the present, and a deeply hopeful vision for the future. 

By combining these various sources, we hope to paint a more detailed image of the defiantly and triumphantly post-colonial legacy that Rachid leaves behind, and to celebrate the life of an artist taken far too soon.

To this end, this programme will rely on Rachid’s own songs and words to the extent possible, and will progress chronologically. To bridge the gaps between different moments and sources, I’ll offer background details as well as my own commentary and analysis. And so, we proceed  - 

*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Rock El Casbah*

The story begins in Sig (سيق), Algeria, where in 1958 - Rachid was born. He moved to France at 10 years old with his parents, settling in Alsace in the North, before moving in 1977 to a suburb of Lyon at 19. There he quickly became immersed in the local Maghrebi cultural center as well as other sites of gathering for immigrants of different nationalities. In this setting, Rachid was able to explore his Maghrebi heritage and learn of other cultures he hadn’t been exposed to previously.

But times were hard.

His father worked as a laborer in a textile factory to support their family, but the meagre income and the exhausting work barely amounted to sustenance. According to Rachid, his father was a “modern slave.” By 19, Rachid had followed his father’s footsteps and begin working a menial job in a heating plant. 

The family’s conditions worsened with the rise of Raymond Barre and the economic crisis of the mid 1970s. Migrant families descended further into social and economic precarity. Deportations increased, while living conditions declined. In Lyon, Rachid and his peers witnessed this directly.

It was during this time that Rachid began working as a DJ in a nightclub after his shifts. This provided Rachid a language of self-expression. He began to combine music from different cultures and genres that were said shouldn’t be played together. These eclectic, irreverent mixes was a form of rebellion, celebration, self-assertion, and creation.

It was only shortly after when in 1979, at 21 years old, Rachid and friends from his Banlieueu started their first musical group - Carte de Sejour. 

*Musical Excerpt - Carte de Sejour, Bleu de Marseille*

The group, whose name literally translates to Residence Permit, was formed with one clear vision: to boldly and unapologetically channel the identities of Maghrebi immigrants in France. 

This meant resisting the urges to self-essentialize as either French or Maghrebi and instead play in the fertile space in between. In so doing, the group confronted all who posited Maghrebi and French identities as oppositional. Their songs directly spoke of the Maghrebi-French experience - from the hyper-specific details of everyday life, to grand themes of multidimensional violence. 

True to the immigrant’s experience, the group positioned itself also between genres & languages, amassing a dizzying array of musical expression and very unique content to express.

They borrowed from genres as diverse as Punk, Gnawa, New Wave & Reggae. And they sang in a vernacular which they referred to as the language of the Rhorhos - a mix of Orani Arabic, French, and Lyonnaise slang.

The first song we will look at is entitled Bleu de Marseille. It depicts the romanticized idea of France among non-migrant Maghrebi youth. Notice the feel and content of this song - the excitement and the wonder.

This will set the stage for the harsh reality migration actually presents. 

The chorus yells - “oh my brother, you’re so dear to me… Don’t forget to bring me some of the soap and perfume.”

*Musical Excerpt - Carte de Sejour, Bleu de Marseille*

The joyful, frenzied lyrics delivered on this upbeat, quick-tempoed track provide a good depiction of what Fanon may have called, “the spell cast from afar.” The enchantment and the allure of the metropole - the there across the sea drawing you closer yet always keeping you at a distance. 

In the three verses, presumably three different individuals give a traveller advice for his time in France. The three each disagree and propose a new itinerary - where to go, who to see, and so on. Yet for all their differences, the three share the same request - soap and perfume.

On one level, it’s a humorous and light-hearted request. The band is poking fun at the excitement of Maghrebi residents over French products. 

But even here, the request reflects the inheritance and internalization of a Eurocentric symbolic order. One where the smells and rituals of beauty are prioritized on the basis solely of being French. 

Likewise in the hyper, urgent ways that the migrant’s friends give him advice, we can discern an urge to prove one’s relationship to France. So to an extent, self-worth, on the level of the individual, is shown to be tied to one’s proximity to France. 

Even from this light song then, we can see economic, social, and psychological aspects to this migration.

The group would explore all of these themes and more in their future discography, elaborating on the violence that occurs on each of these dimensions. We’ll briefly survey two songs, La Moda and Ouadou.

In the case of the 1982 song La Moda, this violence revolves around one’s relationship to one’s body. 

The song is a somber first-person narration of a young Maghrebi immigrant. He has worked hard all week to afford the latest French fashion so that he may feel confident enough to go to a club. He has blow dried and brushed his hair, put on his finest suit, but he is denied entry. The bouncer shuts the door in his face. He’s devastated. His mind races, “but I’m in the latest fashion,” he thinks - only to realize, he has forgotten to dye his hair.

*Musical Excerpt - Carte de Sejour, La Moda*

La Moda offers an intimate account of the personal struggle for self-love as an immigrant when one’s exclusion is tied to the very markers of their immigrancy. It reveals the pressures towards assimilation through self-mutilation: aesthetic deMaghrebization. As we’ll discuss shortly, Rachid would explore this theme later on in his career.

The next song Ouadou (وعدوا) cries out against the socio-economic and spatial violence awaiting the immigrant, and specifically how it contrasts the promises that the migrant is told. It speaks out on the precarious labor conditions and poor housing arrangements the wear down and break the individual. 

The verse performatively extolls a France which educated, feeds, and heals. A refrain wails repeatedly, و    عدوا وعدوا الجنة - “they promised him heaven”. But what awaited him wasn’t heaven. The chorus chants -” In France we throw him down a hole. He was a man, but we turned him to a rat. He gave up his resistance. He buried his youth.”

*Musical Excerpt - Carte de Sejour, Ouadou*

With songs like these, it was no surprise that Carte de Sejour was on the front-line of many protests and marches. And yet, the group had an ambivalent relationship with the established anti-racism protest movement. They sensed an essentialization among the different, and predominantly white-led, anti-rascist movements that strove to impose a singular image and narrative upon the immigrant - one that was palatable and docile for the French public. An image of victimhood, of exclusion, and of a dream for assimilation. 

But the group wouldn’t subscribe to that. 

While some of their songs, like Ramsa, Desolé, & Nar revealed the victimhood of this entity, others like Zoubida, Halouf Nar, and Rhorhomanie would not. Whereas the first three revolve around police brutality and institutional racism in housing, the latter 3 revolve around gender-based violence in the Arab world, the patriarchy, and their crafted Franco-Maghrebi identity. 

Their boldness of expression coupled with their excessively guttural and deliberately overemphasized Arabic brought forth a “discomforting ‘Arabness’” rooted in the gendered connotation of the male Maghrebi immigrant as a dangerous, violent entity. According to Lebrun, this “complex depcition of the Arab clashed with the straightforward victimising discourse of the 1980s anti-racist movement.” The elaboration of the Franco-Maghrebi consciousness was considered a challenge to the Republican, assimilationist doctrine, and therefore, threatening. 

Nonetheless, the group was present at various important junctures. 

On the 31st of October in 1980, they performed at a concert organized in opposition to the Barre administration’s proposed amendments to the “Security and Liberty Laws,” which would have extended the power of the police and more severely punished violent and repeat offenders: three measures which would all disproportionately affect subaltern immigrants.

On December 3rd 1983, they played at the final concert of the March of the Beurs for a crowd of over 100,000 in Paris. The marches had begun in October following months of protest and strings of racist violence against Maghrebis.

Throughout 1984, the group performed at multiple rallies against the National Front which were gaining power. 

But their most infamous moment would come on June 15th 1985 at the Place de la Concorde in Paris at a concert marking the launch of SOS Racisme. The group would play Douce France - a song that was written under occupation in the 1940s; a loving and patriotic ode to France. For a group of Maghrebi immigrants to excavate it in this context was itself a provocative gesture. 

Here is an audio-clip of Rachid introducing the song at the march. His words in and of themselves capture much of what we’ve discussed thus far - let’s listen:

*Audio Excerpt - Rachid introducing the song live*: 

We’re going to play a damn French song… by Charles Trenet… It’s called Douce France.

Do you know Douce France? Do you know it or not?

Don’t you like it? I can see some of you shaking your heads.

This touches your heritage - but well its our heritage too isn’t it. If you’re here I bet you agree. 

Can we sing Charles Trenet?

There’s some Arabs saying no.

I know that even among the Arabs there are racists. The whole world is racist. But hey, nobody is perfect.

Notice the anti-essentialism and the self-criticism embedded within that excerpt. Even on so large of a venue, Rachid wouldn’t play the role of helpless victim or promote this fetishized image of the Arab. Rather, he called out the French racists as well as the Arab ones, combatting racism in both communities he identifies with in the same breathe.  

As per the song itself, the soft and slow melody of the original was replaced with an irreverent and ironic punk groove. Its contents were shuffled around, and the Maghrebi stamp was sealed with the introduction of the oud, the mandolin, and the darbouk.

Considering the racialized connotation of the original song, which sings of the “tender carelessness” of a Frenchman’s childhood in colonial France - while the colonized subjects were in that time and in Rachid’s time made to suffer, - this is indeed a triumphant postcolonial appropriation; a Franco-Maghrebization. As Rachid wrote, the band “vomited over it.” 

Let’s listen - 

*Audio Excerpt - Carte Sejour: Douce France*

A full year would pass before this track was finally published in November 1986. A lot had happened during that period and the group released it at an opportune moment as a targeted political message.

In March that year, the Socialist president Francois Mitterand invited Jacques Chirac and his RPR/UDF right-wing coalition to form the first ‘cohabitation’ government of the Fifth Republic. Mitterand focused more on international affairs while Chirac - notorious for complaining of the ‘noise and smell’ of migrants - had internal control to pursue his anti-immigrant policies domestically.

A first significant Chirac victory came with the passing of the 1st of the Pasqua laws on the 9th September 1986. The law provided for the ability to expel foreigners under loosely defined and irregular circumstances. The expulsions would “no longer be a matter for the courts, but rather a purely administrative decision, authorized by the Prefect.” Moreover, it made immigration and obtaining a 10-year residency permit much more difficult. It also hammered down on illegal immigrants by proliferating identity checks and racialized policing.

A following measure came on the 12th of November, when the Minister of Justice, Albin Chalandon, introduced a bill proposing reforms to the Nationality Code. It sought to challenge the existing system of Jus Soli, or birthright citizenship, under which any child born in France is considered French. The proposal sought to put more steps in front of the achievement of citizenship, setting a precedent for obstructionism. 

It was amid the lively debates on this nationality code that Rachid finally released Douce France in November 1986. He had asked Jack Lang, the former Minister of Culture to distribute copies of the record in the National Assembly as a form of protest. Lang did so, accompanied not by Rachid, but by Charles Trenet. This image of reconciliation was carried onwards as the song was co-opted by the Socialists as a symbol of Republican assimilation and an anti-FN anthem. While this brought the band some success and notoriety, including the 1987 award for best french rock group, it also masked the complex Franco-Mahrebi identity that the band had cultivated and played into the depiction of a victimized immigrant that they had sought to avoid.

I asked Rachid to reflect on the song and the experience that followed it  - 

*Interview Excerpt - Rachid on Douce France: *

When I did Douce France, it was a way to address the National Front’s political vision. At the time, in France, those who were born there were considered French, and the National Front  wanted to change that to jus sanguinis, so it was my way of correcting that…I asked Jack Lang to distribute the record so that I could put the fascists and the fundamentalists back-to-back... It's a bit like Emile Zola saying "J'accuse", it's a way of saying: stop saying bullshit! But also at the same time to say: be careful! Because what you are going to do will destroy France, and our children will suffer for it. 

Obviously, they canceled this project and all the children who were born after that were unaffected.

They can thank uncle Rachid for being French, because otherwise they were going the German way, that was jus sanguinis. Be careful, France is a Republican mix, it's the people who are born on the land. Voila!

In addition to their activism for political change within France, and their exploration of the violence of the immigrant experience, the group has also agitated for various causes within the Maghrebi communities, including against gender based violence, homophobia, and racism.

When the group was expected to present a simple narrative of a singular victimized Maghrebi, they chose to address the multi-faceted and crippling violence inherent within that community. 

In a way this two-pronged attack reflected the group’s hyphenated identity and their commitment to advancing both camps.

The group’s 1982 song, Zoubida - which was in fact the first record the group ever released - is perhaps the most poignant instance of this Maghrebi activism. 

The song tells the dark story of a young Maghrebi girl thrust from a happy, hopeful existence, into a deep, isolating depression when her father marries her off suddenly against her will. With no one to help her, no one to comfort her, she takes her life.

*Musical Excerpt - Carte de Sejour, Zoubida*

The song would be taken up again over 30 years later by Rachid, in his 2013 solo album ZOOM. 

Only, this time the title would be different. It was no longer Zoubida, but Jamila. 

The words are the same, but for an added introduction - “this story is as old as the hills; but this story has just happened today.”

The feel too is different. The wailing punk groove is replaced with a forlorn, atmospheric, even acidic ambience. The song seems to be performed in an echo-chamber; words and instruments reverberate and repeat, over and over again. It is panic-inducing and suspenseful. Chaotic, like a world moving a mile a minute. 

*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Jamila*

I asked Rachid in 2019 why he felt the urge to release Zoubida in 1982, at a time when the pressures were so high not to; and why he chose to revisit it, this way, in 2013. Here is his response - 

*Interview Excerpt - Rachid on Zoubida and Gender-based Violence: *

If I recount the story of Zoubida, and then of Djamila, and on.. and If I change the name each time, its because nothing has changed, nothing has changed! And I think that in our countries (Muslims or Arabs), as long as we do not respect women, as long as she is not part of our being, then we will never get there, we will never arrive, we will always be behind. It's like walking with crutches, it's like limping. Arab countries, and all countries that do not respect women’s rights and situations are behind, they are in the shit. And I realize every day, the woman is, as Aragon would say, "the future of man." I realize that women are hyper important, and I think that’s why I come back every time or I tell this story: because nothing has changed, nothing has changed!

The last woman we respected was Oum Kolthoum, but what was Oum Kolthoum? She was a woman who sang for power, but to what end? Still, nothing has changed! 

Women simply aren’t free. They’re not solely made for cooking, women nourish us in the inside and the outside, and I think that's why I always repeat myself. 

In my next album there will be another Zoubida, because it still exists, there are still women who are married by force, and who are burned alive as we see in Pakistan... we burn them. There are even men who marry several women... It's slavery. As John Lennon would say "women are still the immigrants from within", and I do not want them to be immigrants anymore.

Indeed gender-based violence persists and transcends borders. And yet, Rachid directs us inwards to reflect on the ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’ worlds - an occasion we will not pass up here. 

In the days just prior to this podcast, social media was alight with horror and disgust at the honor killing of the Palestinian اسراء غريب . People expressed their outrage online with the hashtags  #كلنا_اسراء_غريب and #WeAreAllIsraa. But as Rachid tells us, we will never know all of the names of those who suffer from it.

Rachid’s final articulation, of women as immigrant, is particularly significant. In this simple statement, Rachid situates the permanent social inferiority of women inside the long cultural tradition of the misery and wretchedness that come with migration. It extends the dynamics of the immigrant beyond just the physical dimension, where it is normally conceived, into the dimension of gender. In a world dominated by men, the women is the visitor - yet, unlike the migrant who moves physically, there is no territory she can return to. She is an immigrant without an emigration - destined to live a never-ending migration. The diagnosis is especially poignant coming from Taha, who identifies himself as a “permanent immigrant” - “Algerien pour toujours, et Français tous les jours,” - and has dedicated the vast majority of his artistic effort to this phenomenon as we shall see presently.

*Musical Excerpt - Carte de Sejour, Habibi*

The group Carte de Sejour would split up in 1990, citing differing visions for their future and of their identity. Rachid would relocate to Paris where he’d kickstart an astoundingly successful solo-career. 

His project continued much of what we’ve discussed with Carte-de-Sejour. He continued to express the complexities of the Subaltern postcolonial experience, which was suspended in between nationalities and identities, with musical expressions that were themselves between languages and genres. The patterns of these expressions would change however; they would transition away from punk and further into the worlds of dance, electronic, and hip-hop, while still maintaining the core Maghrebi instruments. To some extent, Rachid would also exhibit a change in content, shifting from the local to the global - removing the hyper-specificity that was so captivating in songs from Carte de Sejour and generalizing to speak to larger, varying audiences. 

The work that followed was significant for many reasons. Firstly, it mobilized music as well as album covers, stage theatrics, and aesthetics for socio-political and cultural activism. Secondly, by way of performing covers of older songs, it bridged past with present to connect immigrant youth - whether Maghrebi, Arab, or African - with their cultural heritage, hitherto categorically excluded. The wonderful repository produced contained celebrations of culture, and acute political messaging revealing how though times have changed and the shroud of colonialism had fallen, important commonalities remained. And lastly, it provided important insights into the multidimensional nature of an immigrant’s estrangement.

Each of these three themes can be found in abundance in Rachid’s first solo album, Barbés. The album is dedicated to a Parisian neighborhood of the same name that was then known and feared for its substantial immigrant population. In the racist climate at the turn of the decade, Barbes was painted as a hub of the unassimilated and a clear signal of the failure of France’s policy of immigration. As such, when Rachid dedicated his debut solo album to a celebration of Barbes, he was not merely making a political commentary but directly positioning himself in solidarity with the immigrant community.

Let’s hear the title track:

*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Barbes*

In true ironic fashion, Rachid responds to the racialized fear against the immigrant with his own, performative, over-elaborated immigrancy. Growling in a lewd Arabic, Rachid reassures the audience that there are never any problems in Barbés. He snarls as he promises that everyone is polite in Barbés. He yells with a mob as he invites you to Barbés, before breaking out in an excited celebration of its movement and color. 

In this brief song, Taha reclaims Barbés for its residents by celebrating exactly what Barbés is criticized for. The street sounds, the commotion, yelling and cheering, even police sirens, are incorporated into this festive ode to quotidian life. The result is just as heartfelt and politically motivated as Trenet’s Douce France.

The other songs on the album would see Rachid experiment with a new musical style: a progressive ambiental trance laced with rock, hip-hop, and a strong Chaabi core. 

The song Lela is an exception on the album. It is a reworking of a traditional Algerian Melhoun sung as a duet with Cheba Nouria (نوريا). Here, Rachid’s bold act was not to blur genres but rather to commit to one and deliver the undiluted message of the song and a salute to his musical predecessors. It is a way for Rachid to connect with his Maghrebi heritage and pay homage to the greats that have come before. Moreover, it was a signal from the outset that this nascent solo career would continue to blur the lines of here and there, past and present.

*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Lela*

All of this themes would be further developed in Rachid Taha’s following 1993 self-titled album. 

Reunited with Steve Hillage, who was a former psychedelic guitarist and the producer of a Carte de Sejour album, Taha would better articulate the projects and possibilities he had conceived of for this new genre. The two would remain together for the next 15 years.

Besides further refining this nascent genre, the album gives a more direct and sustained meditation on life as an immigrant, best captured in the songs Ya Rayah and Voila Voila - two of the pinnacles of Rachid’s career. We’ll explore both shortly.

The song Ya Rayah is a cautionary and lamentful ode to immigration and exile. It was composed in 1973 by Dahmane El Harrachi in response to the massive flight of Maghrebis to Europe at that time. Yet despite this circumstance, the song remains general and only addresses that which is universal and immutable in exile. It is a potent and timeless work that is as relevant now as it was at the time of writing.

The song is structured as a narration - the singer takes up the role of a knowing and sagacious former migrant; the listener is cast alternatingly between the roles of the departer <الرايح>, the traveller <مسافر>, and the foreigner <الغايب في بلاد الناس>. These three roles capture the three steps of migration - of leaving, of arriving, and remaining - and as such provide a framework to discuss this phenomenon in all its aspects. In what follows, Dahmane empathizes with what makes one want to leave, but cautions against the arduous journey of arrival, and the wretched, exhausting life that awaits. He invites the listener to reflect on those who have failed before them, on time which shouldn’t be wasted wandering, and of fate which one can never elude. 

In covering this song, Rachid voluntarily picked up the mantle of the sagacious elder: the weathered and learned migrant, returning to his land and spreading the tales of his travels. But beyond just that, at a time when most Algerian artists were exploring Raï to big commercial success, Rachid was championing Chaabi music, with a goal to “innovate on the form, but be faithful to [its] essence.” Let’s listen to the result -

*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Ya Rayah*

While the Arabic Ya Rayah addressed the Maghreb, Voila Voila was directed right at the heart of France. As with the song Douce France, Taha used his music to amplify an urgent political message - France was descending rapidly into xenophobia.

At that moment, France had just elected a right-wing government on the platform of “immigration-zero”, which was a campaign to arrest certain racialized immigration practices. This coalition had won an astonishing 84% of the seats of the National Assembly, revealing how wide-spread and normalized this stance had become. All the while, the National Front continued to galvanize segments of the public with calls to expel Muslim immigrants.

The song’s hard-hitting political lyrics offer a diagnosis of a nation that chooses to forget its history and to project its problems onto a minority. One can feel the signs - the verse tells us, “you can hear it everywhere, they say ‘foreigners you are the cause of our problems.’” Yet, just like Ya Rayah, it avoid specificity and speaks to what is universal of xenophobia as it manifests around the world. For this reason, Taha would release multiple versions including a Spanish version in 2003, and a new French version in 2013 featuring Femi Kuta, Eric Cantona, and Mick Jones. 

I asked Taha to reflect on writing the track, and whether he anticipated it’d have the longevity it did. Let’s hear an excerpt from the original release of the song, and then listen to his response.

*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Voila Voila*

*Interview Excerpt - Rachid on Voila Voila*:

It is sad to say but  « Voilà Voilà»  has proven to be an eternal song. Its incredible -  I actually wanted to make an Italian version when I saw what was happening in Italy specifically with the rise of the racist populist parties. But these days, there is racism everywhere - there are even Nazis in Israel, and Nazis in Algeria. They are everywhere in the world. Racism, anti-Semitism, all of that… its intolerable.  

It’s funny, because who made the video clip for Voila Voila? Michel Gondry. It’s incredible, right! And yet, when I made it, there used to be channels that never played it. And that version was great because it was produced with Brian Eno, Steve Hillage, Mick Jones,  and was a political statement.

So « Voilà Voilà, Que ça Recommence »  was a way to say: attention, it’s starting again! It's about the Second World War, it's about the Holocaust, it's about everything. I want to say to men "Excuse me! Stop! Otherwise we’ll be in deep shit! ". 

When I thought we had destroyed the walls of Berlin, here we are still building walls elsewhere.

*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Comme un Chien*

1995 saw Rachid release a new album - entitled Olé Olé.  While the songs weren’t overtly political themselves, the album cover certainly was. It had an image of Rachid: head detached from body; hair bleached blonde; and irises colored soft blue.  It was Rachid as Aryan.

The image made a multidimensional commentary. On one hand, it was directed snarkily at the French public, who had excluded Rachid based on his political messaging and his Maghrebi background post Gulf war. On another, it tackled the same form of cosmetic self-mutation Rachid had sang about in La Moda, further encouraging a conversation hitherto silenced. Amidst all, it was also a bold reminder of the forgotten lessons of history.

While this album cover was clear in intention and expression, others drew from an eclectic set of sources, ranging from the Bible to Bollywood. Considering that this is yet another avenue of expression for Rachid, I asked him to reflect upon this album cover as well as some of the others he’d produced.

*Interview Excerpt - Rachid on Covers*:

Firstly, a cover derives from the verb to cover. We get covered from everything. When we're cold we get covered, when we're hot we get covered, to seek shelter from insects, from anything… 

A cover is cinematic; the first thing people want to see is an image. Growing up, the cinema always had a cover. The cover is a form of propaganda. In Bollywood there was always a cover that knew just how to attract the public, and I sought to make covers that attracted people and their spirits.

The first thing needed to attract others is a beautiful photo. It’s propaganda! In fact, the cover is why we created photographers. Photographers wouldn’t exist without covers, just like models without covers are nothing.   

Let's recall Hitler, the Nazis, let's remember, they made a cover to cover themselves and at the same time to attract people. Even the Quran, has a cover, and so does the Bible and even Playboy magazine. Furthermore, even prostitutes have a cover, when they are on the sidewalk how they dress is a cover. 

In music, one covers oneself, and at the same time discovers oneself, because an artist is at the same time a prostitute, an intellectual, and at once a music dealer. 

When I made the cover of Olé Olé, it was about the Nazis, when I made the cover of Diwân 2 it was to commemorate the Algerian War, when I made the cover of Tekitoi, it was a way to remember Jesus. So, why did I use photography? To speak, of the Algerian war, I talked about Nazism, the problems of women, etc. Because I live in the West, every time I make a cover it is to attract the eye and to talk about a political situation. 

The most beautiful cover in the world, actually, is the album of Clash, let's remember that, with the guitar, London Calling.

Though not mentioned in Rachid’s response, an image present in the liner-notes of Olé Olé, and the cover of the subsequent album Diwan are intimately related. Both are nearly mirror images of one another. They are photographs of Rachid, taken from the side, against a sky-blue background wearing a purple shirt and suspended in the air - his hair suspended in free fall. In the liner notes of Olé Olé, his hair is peroxide blonde. He is facing West and his expression is forlorn. On the cover of Diwan, his hair is its natural color and he is facing east. He has an expression of joy on his face. 

Indeed, the album Diwan, as well as its successor Diwan 2, have a singular intention - to resurface lost gems from the great Maghrebi and Arabic musical anthologies of the past. Together, they bring forth 17 unique covers, each imbued with its own significance.

On the level of the discography, the listener can identify Rachid invoking three distinct identities. The Maghrebi as captured in covers of Blaoui Houari and Ahmed Khelifi; the pan-Arab in Farid al-Atrache and Oum Kalthoum; and the pan-African in Frances Bebey and beyond. This fluid fluctuation is not like the desire to self-mutilate and camouflage to appease an external gaze. Rather, it is an exploration as well as a celebration of diversity and the generative power of multiculturalism. Against a context where immigrants were pressured to shed all connections to their heritage to become French, Rachid showed the generative and beautiful results of cultural reclamation.

On the level of the individual songs, the listener can discern varying mixes of political, personal, and social commentary embedded within each song. These are made more profound when considering the new possibilities of mobility and communication that the post-colonial artist is afforded. This is especially poignant with the cover and transmission of track, Ya Menfi - O Exiled.

The song is a first hand account of exile and imprisonment that was written and composed by Akli Yahyaten in the 1950s and is based upon his own time incarcerated in French jails. The lyrics of the verses are Akli’s own prison diary, chronicling his own recollections in intimate detail. As opposed to the verse, the chorus comes from folk music that commemorates the revolutionaries of the 1870 rebellion, who France exiled from Algeria en masse. Its lyric rings, “tell my mother not to cry; our God will not forsake us.” 

Taha published this track on Diwan and performed it live at multiple venues all across France. He was thereby able to transport a hitherto marginalized narrative into the heart of contemporary France. He amplified the prison-diaries of generations categorically excluded and in so doing staged a confrontation between the French and the brutality of their former empire.

*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Ya Menfi*

In similar fashion, the opening song of Diwan 2 channels a lesson from the past generation of Maghrebi immigrants. It is a cover of Mohamed Mazouni’s Ecoute Moi Camarade. The original was written in the 1970s to warn against the elusive allure of immigration - seductive and sickening. The song takes the form of a conversation between the singer and the listener. France is replaced by a girl. “Listen to me,” we are told, “forget this girl - you hear me? She will make you sick, and you will suffer a long time.” In the monologue that follows, the narrator tells us that she takes advantage of us, that she misleads, and lies, and will never love us, not even in a hundred years. The verses continue, and the speaker grows more upset - insulting the listener for allowing themselves to be put in such a degrading scenario. But the final verse reveals all. The speaker pauses, and looks around. He asks - “But who is this comrade? I’m speaking all alone here. So then it’s me - the comrade. The poor fool. It’s me.”  

*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Ecoute Moi Camarade*

Amid the myriad covers on these 2 albums, one artist’s works stand above the pack. Of the 17 songs, 5 belong to Dahmane El-Harrachi, making him Rachid’s most covered artist. I asked Rachid to explain this affinity - here is his response.

*Interview Excerpt - Rachid Taha on Dahmane El Harrachi*:

Dahmane El Herrache, firstly, is not his name. That's what's interesting: all the Arab artists -even before them, the French artists- gave themselves names in order not to bother their families. Being in the music industry is considered something a bit cheesy… He’d be considered a loser. Dahmane El Herrache’s actual name is Abderrahmane Amrani.

And why? Dahmane El Herrachi is a bit like the common story of all our immigration, and "Ya Rayah" was a song that spoke about immigration, about those who are far away from home. And Dahmane El Herrachi was a lonesome immigrant, who loved alcohol, who loved life, and at the same time who was very religious, he spoke in a very interesting way about God. He spoke about friendship, about peoples. And Dahmane El Herrachi, why? Because I liked his way of singing. For me, Dahamane El Herrachi is the Algerian Country... the oriental country. Dahmane El Herrachi is a bit like Jack Kerouac. That is why I like him. His texts draw me; his texts remind me of my childhood. He was elegant, he looks like Clark Gable, Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif, and he sings at the same time, that's what it is ...Voila! I love class!

Following the success of the first Diwan album, Rachid would release some of the most successful and acclaimed music of his career.

In 1998, he performed live in concert with fellow Algerian musicians Faudel and Cheb Khaled in front of over 20,000 attendees in Paris. The trio played a compilation of their respective works, with each musician offering themselves to build on the performance of the others’ songs. From Rachid’s anthology, the trio opened the concert with a rendition of Ya Menfi before performing Ya Rayah and Voila Voila. It marked a moment of profound unity and triumph as the three musicians filled the stadium in the heart of Paris with the poetry of their ancestors, the prison diaries of their elders, their folklore of immigration, and their bold diagnosis of xenophobia on the rise.

The CD of the concert achieved massive success and was certified double gold in France. With his name now elevated to a higher level of fame, Rachid would release 2 albums - Made in Medina in 2000 and Tekitoi in 2004. Though both albums are packed to the brim with political significance, the track Medina on the former stands out as particularly important.

The song explores the city as seen and felt by a foreigner implanted within it. The music is rapid paced and frenzied, like the commotion of the city, but the Oud and Mandolin are pensive and comforting. The melody alternates between hope and despair. The lyrics are forlorn; they tell of loneliness and misery in the first person. The speaker is lost in a city, left behind amidst waves of people rushing around purposefully. He feels isolated, detached. “I’m an outsider among these people; I’m an outsider in this city.” He doesn’t know how he’s going to get by. As the song draws to a close, he loses his grip, and fades into the background, consumed by the city.

*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Medina*

I asked Rachid to offer some insight into the thought-process behind the song. I wondered to what extent it was biographical, and why he had chosen to be so elusive in referring to it solely as the city.

*Interview Excerpt - Rachid Taha on Medina*:

Listen to my words and you’ll understand what I'm saying! When I say "fel medina", it is about loneliness, melange, depression. It is a criticism of the West, but beyond, it’s an ecological song. It describes what happens all the time in cities…"ana wehdi, denia ghadia w denia jaya". It's a little reminder of internal immigration, because people are immigrating within, they're searching for a place to live, "ana wehdi fel medina, manejemch." They are lost; they do not understand what’s going on. They cross a street, but arrive nowhere.So it is mostly about the cities that we build, and the people from within... we have to remember that the people coming to the cities, even those coming from the countryside, they’re foreigners, and they are always foreign even inside. For a city like Paris, there can only be foreigners; a city like New York or London also… 

We feel completely deprived of everything, so we come to the city to work, and when we work we become slaves of the city, so I speak of modern slavery, in Medina.

"Medina el kebria, win rani nchouf"... What happens at the end of the road? Nothing happens. We're slaves of the Other because at the end of the road, there’s the ocean, and we are out of life buoys...

Rachid’s following albums would see him continue in this same tradition, blurring genre, language, time, and space to create beautiful music and transmit important messages. Tekitoi was rife with political intent and addressed the patriarchal, antidemocratic environment in and out of the household in the Arab world. Bonjour and Zoom would be Taha’s most radio-friendly and commercially-oriented albums - and yet they too combined the musical traditions of Europe and the Maghreb in novel ways.

As a final question, I asked Rachid what his future held in store. His words speak for themselves -

*Interview Excerpt - Rachid Taha on the future*: 

Surprises! Surprises, all the time!

It's surprising, because I'm currently making an album for example, that speaks to Europe; that speaks to the world.

Sir, you, you are Egyptian, are you listening to me? (interviewer: Palestinian). Palestinian, Arab like me, still, we must know that music - thanks to the Greeks and the Persians we’re making music-  but, my dear friends, it is the only way, we do not have the atomic bomb, we only have culture, as Mohamed Darwich said: "the dove, the dove!". We, the Palestinians, or the Arabs, or the Jews, or anyone, we are all on one land ... we are all foreign on this earth, but the only way to win freedom is not by making atomic bombs, it's by loving oneself, by making love, I love making love, fuck! Oh it is good to make love!

Let’s make love! I'm not going to be all hippie, but I think love matters. People who make wars, people who bomb, people who make bombs, I still do not understand why a guy, an engineer, would make bombs to kill others! I would make hearts to make love, I would make beds, I would make night clubs (he laughs), but it's true; I would make night clubs, so we dance. A guy who spends his time making machine guns, who makes bullets, is a sick guy, he has a mental illness. Honestly a guy who only thinks about killing others… While I only think about making others live, I want to make love, make beds, I would like to only talk about sexy things. The people who make wars, are not humans, fuck you you're an assassin! Killing others is not a job! It’s being a murderer, a criminal. But me, my dream is to make beds and sheets, (kiss) Habibi!

Rachid passed away on September 12th, 2018 following a heart-attack suffered while asleep at his home in Paris.

He was laid to rest in Oran, Algeria - returning to the land on which he was born.

He leaves behind a wife, a son, and a legacy that will shine for generations - one of music, thoughts, moments, and symbols - one that this exercise has not even begun to glimpse.

His posthumous album, entitled Je Suis Africaine , will be published on September 20th.

*Musical Excerpt - Rachid Taha, Je Suis Africaine*