Rachid Taha, non-conformist and mischievous artist, celebrated as a hero

2023-09-15 21:00:04
Rachid Taha on stage in Toulouse, June 21, 2009. REMY GABALDA/AFP

Rachid Taha, rocker singer. Born in Algeria, he arrived in France at the age of 10. After living in Alsace and the Vosges with his family, he emerged on the musical landscape during the 1980s with the group Carte de stay. Special signs: fury for life, rock’n’roll spirit, free and unbridled, subversive and militant humor, angry, mischievous, offbeat, provocative. Deeply sensitive, sometimes fragile, moving. He died of cardiac arrest at his home in Les Lilas (Seine-Saint-Denis), on the night of September 11 to 12, 2018.

Five years after his death, the facetious nonconformist is celebrated as a hero, told in sounds (a complete set of his studio recordings reissued in a box set), in images (Rachid Taha, rocker without borders, documentary broadcast on France 5). In a few weeks, the C’est dans la Vallée festival (from October 19 to 22 in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, in Haut-Rhin) organized by his friend and brother at heart, the singer and guitarist Rodolphe Burger, he will in turn pay homage.

Read the obituary: Article reserved for our subscribers Rachid Taha, the chaâbi punk, is dead

Rachid Taha is « party » a few days before his 60th birthday and a concert which was planned at the Lyon Opera, with the participation of his accomplice producer and guitarist, the Briton Steve Hillage – formerly of the progressive rock group Gong. A concert with strings from the Lyon Opera Orchestra to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Diwan, one of the defining albums of his career. He mainly covers covers of Arab classics, including Algerian chaâbi, a popular genre that appeared during the 1920s in the taverns of the casbah of Algiers. Rachid Taha was fond of it. He made a splash with his cover of Oh rayah (“the departure”), flagship song of North African immigration, composed in France by Dahmane El Harrachi (1926-1980).

In the evenings, we still dance to Oh rayah Rachid Taha version. It is one of his greatest successes, with Rock the Casbahin rereading of the title of the English punk group The Clash – one of its claimed references, since Carte de résistance –, or even There you go with which he intended to denounce the rise of the extreme right in France.

Curious and self-taught

All of his studio albums, including those recorded with Carte de Séjour – Rhorhomanie (1984), for the first time released on CD and 2 ½ (1986), with the cover of the song Sweet Franceby Charles Trenet, a diversion which caused controversy at the time – are brought together in a box set of 14 CDs, released in limited edition: Cétoului. A compilation of public recordings, plus remixes, by electro DJs (Roger Sanchez, Stacey Pullen, System 7, Justin Robertson, etc.) has been added. On the box, Rachid Taha poses, turban on his head, look tinged with challenge and irony (photo by Bernard Benant).

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