Raï

What it is

In Arabic the word raï means “opinion, view, point of view”, also “advice”; it goes back to the root r-y, “to see”¹. Another explanation derives the name from the cry “Ya raï”, with which singers and musicians at celebrations spur on inspiration².

In its traditional form, raï arose at the beginning of the 20th century as rural music; in the 1970s it was modernised, and since the 1990s it has been known internationally³.

Where it comes from

In Morocco, Oujda in the east of the country is the city of raï: cafés and record shops play it all day long, and there it has largely displaced the older gharnati⁴. The organisers of the festival call raï a living expression of the cultural identity of the Oriental region⁵. In 2026 an exhibition in Oujda paid tribute with twenty paintings to 23 pioneers of raï and other styles of the region, from the founding generation of the cheikhs to the singers who made this music known internationally⁶.

History

Until the early 1980s raï stayed in its home area; then young musicians took it, electrified and with new rhythms, into the big cities, and from there it spread throughout the Maghreb and as far as Paris⁷. The singers of this period call themselves cheb, Arabic for “young”⁸, and women singers cheba⁹.

What it is made of

The traditional instruments include the nay, the gasba (a reed flute), darbuka, zoukra and bendir; in the early 1980s synthesisers and drum machines were added¹⁰.

When

The raï festival of the Oriental region took place in 2026 from 22 to 25 July on the Place du Stade d'Honneur in Oujda, organised by the cultural association of the prefecture of Oujda-Angad under the patronage of King Mohammed VI أيده الله (may Allah assist him) and the wilaya of the region¹¹, with 17 performances on four evenings and free admission¹². On the opening night the performers included Cheb Mokhtar El Berkani, Zina Daoudia, Cheb Sami Rai and Cheb Amine Radi, the winner of the festival’s talent competition¹³; many of the artists come from Oujda or the surrounding villages¹⁴.

The idea for the festival came from the association Oujda Raï, later called Oujda Art; the first edition was planned for 2006, and according to La Vie éco the second, in 2008, drew more than 100,000 people every evening to hear 34 artists and groups, among them Khaled¹⁵.