El Besta + Sofiane Saidi Wa7Di (Live)

EL BESTA - Algeria

Hot concerts in Oran quickly got the word out about El Besta: an acoustic raï that fuses tradition and modernity, sublimated by Sofiane Merabet's incandescent voice and Kiss Laredj's haunting accordion. Hailing from the Oranese port town of Mostaganem, the group has plunged fervently into the repertoire of raï classics such as Cheb Abdelhak, Cheb Hamid, Cheb Hasni and Cheb Khaled, icons of a genre in full revival. After Oran and Marseille, the group conquered Paris and its Cabaret sauvage with two packed concerts featuring the carnal power and rebellious energy of a raï that's a hundred years old but perpetually young.

SOFIANE SAIDI Wa7di (live) - Algeria, France
A child of Sidi Bel Abbès, it was from Paris and its suburbs that Sofiane Saidi brought raï back to the dancefloor, establishing himself as the figurehead of a decidedly mutant genre. With Mazalda, a psychedelic sextet from Lyon, he dressed up raï with rock guitars, electro synths, derboukas and flutes, for an emblematic album, El Njoum “les étoiles”, which gave back all its letters of nobility to a music forgotten by the public. Sofiane Saidi is the heir to Raï, right down to the posture, garage rock or Acid Arab. It was in this frame of mind that the idea of an electro-raï solo was born during the covid epidemic. He christened it Wahdi, “all alone” in Arabic, and honed his skills in clubs the world over, to create “a night-time experience, a subversive exploration, a transgressive charge, the raï soul in an electronic body”.