Rachid Taha

Taha took a standard patriotic French song entitled "Sweet France" (in French: Douce France) which had originally been recorded by Charles Trenet in the 1940s, kept the lyrics, but sang it with "furious irony" which irritated many French listeners, particularly coming from a "Scruffy, bohemian-looking Arabic singer", to the point where Taha's version was banned from French radio.

The "acerbic" song created a "splash", nevertheless, and won Taha some recognition as a serious artist.

The group never achieved much commercial success and, as a result, Taha had to work a series of day jobs in a factory, then as a house painter, a dishwasher, and later as an encyclopedia salesman.

Rachid Taha (رشيد طه,, ; 18 September 1958 – 12 September 2018) was an Algerian singer and activist based in France described as "sonically adventurous".

His music was influenced by many different styles including rock, electronic, punk and raï.

Taha was born on 18 September 1958 in Sig, Mascara Province, Algeria, although a second source suggests he was born in the Algerian seacoast city of Oran.

This town was the "birthplace of raï" music, and 1958 was a key year in the Algerian struggle for independence against French authority.

He began listening to Algerian music in the 1960s, including street-style music called chaabi.

Additionally, music from the Maghreb region was part of his upbringing.

Originally raï music was based on "city slickers adapting music from the sticks" and was described as ribald, but it became more of a medium for political protest when young people in the 1960s and 1970s used it to "express their anger and desires."

Taha suggested that Algerian musical styles and rock are "closely linked".

Taha was influenced by the Moroccan chaâbi band Nass El Ghiwane which has been described as "Morocco's answer to the Beatles or the Stones."

He moved with his parents to France when he was ten years old, settling in an immigrant community around the French city of Lyon in 1968.

His father was a textile factory worker, with long hours and low pay, such that his life was compared to that of a "modern slave", according to one account.

Aged 17, Taha worked during the day at a central heating plant, described as a "menial job", and hated this work, but at night worked as a club DJ playing Arabic music, rap, salsa, funk and "anything else that took his fancy."

In the late 1970s, Taha founded the nightclub called The Rejects or, in French, Les Refoulés, where he would spin mashups of Arabic pop classics over Led Zeppelin, Bo Diddley and Kraftwerk backbeats.

In the 1980s, Algeria's indigenous pop music known as raï began to achieve international attention.

In 1981, while living in Lyon, Taha met Mohammed and Mokhtar Amini and the three of them, along with Djamel Dif and Eric Vaquer, would soon form a band.

"It was September 1981, and Taha bumped into all four members of the band just before they were due to play at the Théâtre Mogador in Paris. Taha gave them a copy of a demo tape by his band, Carte de Séjour (Residence Permit), an outfit from Lyon who combined Algerian raï with funk and punk rock. "They looked interested," remembers Taha, "but when they didn't get in touch, I thought nothing of it.

In 1982, Taha was the lead vocalist for the Arab-language rock group which they named Carte de Sejour, meaning Green Card or Residence Permit depending on the translation.

He sang in both French and Arabic, but usually in Arabic.

Taha was inspired by the group The Clash:

They recorded their first maxi album Carte De Séjour in 1983.

In 1984, with the help of British guitarist Steve Hillage, the group achieved a "sharp, driving sound" which played well on the radio, and the LP was entitled Rhoromanie.

In his songwriting, Taha wrote about living in exile and the cultural strife associated with being an Algerian immigrant in France.

In 1986, his "sneering punk-rock cover of 'Douce France'" was seen as an "unmistakable protest against the nation's treatment of its immigrant underclass", and caused consternation in French political circles.

His song "Voilà, Voilà" protested racism.

Taha had to cope with anti-Arab sentiment and confusion; for example, The New York Times stated in a front-page story that Taha was Egyptian rather than Algerian, but later posted a correction.

The band's second and last LP entitled Ramsa (Five) was released in 1986.

The band dissolved in 1989.

"Is "Rock El Casbah", with its images of sheiks gusting through the desert in Cadillacs and cracking down on 'degenerate' disco dancers, an indictment of the oil-choked, religiously fanatical Arab world, or a wry comment on the West's cartoonish vision of the region? No listener to the recording can doubt that it is both, or that in Mr. Taha, a rumpled North African with a buzz saw voice, the Clash has an unlikely heir. – Jody Rosen, 2005"

These were difficult years since record stores often refused to stock their records "because they didn't want Arabs coming into their shops".

There was little money; the band performed in suburbs of Lyon.

"The Clash were militant and hedonistic in equal measure ... And that was exciting to me. You could be a rebel and be in the biggest rock'n' roll band in the world! It was also clear that they loved music. Joe Strummer had nothing to do with that terrible punk cynicism. By the time of Mogador '81 they weren't just a rock'n'roll band, they were doing hip-hop, reggae, ska, country and western, disco, but making it sound their own. I think that's what gave French musicians the confidence to do the same with whatever music they were into. In some ways, they introduced us to the world. – Rachid Taha, in The Guardian, 2007"

Taha met members of the group The Clash in Paris:

Then, a few months later, I heard Rock the Casbah." He cackles mischievously. "Maybe they did hear it after all." The incident has since gone down in French rock legend. – report in The Guardian, 2007"

Taha believed his early recordings helped to inspire The Clash to create the song "Rock the Casbah".

A New York Times music reporter wrote of Taha's cover version of the Clash's hit song probably influenced by his earlier work:

Later, in 2007, Taha-as-an-immigrant was mentioned in France's National Center of the History of Immigration.

When performing live, Taha wore various outfits, including at one point a leather fedora hat, then later a red cowboy hat.