Cheikha RABIA
Speaking of « Cheikha Rabiah » is talking about a great Raï singer, a strong and courageous woman whose life course entitles her to belong to the Algerian great singing ladies legacy.
She is born in 1950, in Relizane, a small village in Mostaganem area, the countryside of the luminous Mediterranean port of Oran in Algeria.
Daughter of a needlewoman and a hairdresser, Rabia discovers the women canto with the exclusively feminine group of dancers, singers and drumming women know as: « the Meddehates ». She is just 14 when she realize how important these bands are, who perform and celebrate life during festivities and wedding parties.
Rabia's performances is inspired from this musical tradition know in the 1930's as « Gharbi ». This music is playing with bamboo flute (Gasba), long drumming (Galal) and tambourine (Tar), earth wood and copper . This percussive and harmonious elements sang with the particular androgynous voice of Cheikha Rabia are the roots of modern raï. The Raï masters of ceremony found inspiration to elaborate their new music in these languorous and feminine songs.
Up that day these repertoires was forbidden to women. Time is always changing. Music open mind. The female singer communicate with the masters, the Sheikh who open up a musical dialog with the singing woman. True way to seize the freedom to express and celebrate life and love.
At the age of 18, she is established « Cheikha », mistress of this art of singing.
This tradition make her feel strong, you feel free to talks about life, unfulfilled loves, hardness and joy. It is a country blues made of haunting rhythms and particular scales .
That is the way people get released from their dreads
She gets famous and leaves to Algiers, invited by a singing woman and her band. She does not get yet how important this new experience is, she produces herself without any veil, alone a microphone in his hand, she fearless sings for the men of the lighted audience, and dancing all night until dawn.
In this time people used to look at singing women as special, old superstition that cannot endlessly survive, Rabias will and fighting spirit proves it. She wants to keep on this way.
She settles in Algiers where she can work in nightclubs and cabarets as well as singing for celebration that occurs in peoples daily life. Her parents move to Algiers where she gets married and becomes a mother. In 1977, she settles in Paris where she keeps on singing in small cabarets around Stalingrad and Barbes". Her divorce opens difficult times, and to educate her kids she have no other choice than stop singing. After five years, kids are growing, she start singing again on weekends. She keep going to Alger where she have few discographics successes. In 1999 she records for Virgin a new album with a strong title : Ana Hak. Follows a European tour of 60 concerts where she discovers Europe in cities as Amsterdam, Brussels, Roubaix, Geneva, Nîmes, and Marseille
Once the tour achieved, she keeps on singing in bars and cabarets to train her throaty and sensible voice that allows no slackening.
Musique Rai
