Cheb Khaled and Pitbull: Rai and the World

Cheb Khaled’s latest studio album, C’est la vie, was released in September this year. The album features signature Khaled songs such as Wili Wili that are slow and catchy, reminiscent of hits like Aicha and also songs like Hiya Hiya which are upbeat dance tracks similar to previous chart toppers, Didi Didi.

Most of the songs on the album consist of the quarter-tone notes (Langlois pg.265). These are a rather rare feature in Rai music considering the element of fusion with Western instrumentation. The use of the derbukka (goblet drum) is also prominent in some of the songs on the album.

Khaled has followed the trend of merging the local and global and ‘East’ and ‘West’ (Langlois, pg. 259) in this album. This sort of musical style is not new in the Rai musical scene where previous experiments by artists like Cheb Mami and Sting have proved to be very successful in the form of hits like Desert Rose. This particular type of collaborative art between the different regions has elevated the status of the Rai music scene in the ‘World Music’ business. Khaled’s song Hiya Hiya in this new album, is in line with the tradition mentioned above. The song features Pitbull, who is a hip name in the world dance music scene. Pitbull’s musical affiliations and marketing strategies are interesting to note here because he uses various alcoholic beverages as elements of product placement in his videos. The implications of this kind of collaboration with an international artist like Pitbull on Rai music will be an interesting subject to study. Previously collaborations between the Rai music producers and the ‘West’ have also been seen as having certain political connotations. An example is Rachid Taha’s song Barra Barra that was featured in Ridley Scott’s film, Black Hawk Down (Swedenburg pg. 183). Critics comment that this application has relevance to the political contexts of that time, that is, the Iraq war. These kinds of examples are recalled as the ‘cultural resistance’ feature notably present in the original Rai music forms. The joint production with Pitbull can also be regarded as a return to the roots of the Rai music that goes with its association with spaces such as nightclubs (Langlois pg. 260). However, such premature conclusions are inadequate, as a confluence of forces such as globalization, glocalization and cultural hybridity are at work here. This album presents a unique situation in terms of the merging of East with the West. But this phenomenon is not entirely new as pointed out above. It is a definite recommendation for those who want to get a sense of the typical Rai dance tunes sprinkled with English verses sung by Pitbull at different points, leading the music to be relevant across different cultures.