WOMAD

Faudel

From Algeria

Back in the late 1990s, rai music, that infectious hedonistic North African form of rock ’n’ roll from Algeria, was undergoing what you might call a midlife crisis. The first generation of pop rai stars like Khaled, Mami, Fadela and Sahraoui were all approaching middle age and looking less and less like the chebs, or ‘charmed youth’, that they once were. There was desperate need to find a new star with appeal to a new generation of North Africans who were growing up in the suburbs of France’s big cities and grooving to hip hop, R&B and ragga, as well as rai. Then Faudel stepped up to the plate. The profile was perfect. He was only 20 years old when his first solo single ‘Tellement n’ Brick’ smashed into the upper reaches of the French charts in 1997. He was born to immigrant parents from Tlemcen in Algeria and raised into the roughneck Val Fourré estate in Maintes La Jolie, a suburb of Paris. At the age of 12 he was already singing with local stars ‘Les Etoiles du Rai’ and a few years later he was opening for his heroes, Khaled, Mami and MC Solaar. His first album ‘Baida’ sold over 300,000 copies and Faudel was crowned ‘The Little Prince of Rai’. In 1998 Faudel joined Khaled and Rachid Taha for the landmark 1-2-3 Soleil concert at the huge Bercy stadium in Paris. It was one of the most significant dates in the history of the North African diaspora. The live album of the event sold more than a million and Faudel became a household name. The point about Faudel is that he considers himself to be both French AND Algerian at the same time and is happy to sing in French and display the same outlook and attitudes of his peer group, the beur generation of young North Africans living in France. After starring in various films and TV shows, releasing a couple more albums including last year’s ‘Un Autre Soleil’, Faudel is now mature and permanent fixture in the French Algerian cultural landscape. The new rai generation have found their star!