Waseem Sayegh

Khaled, the king of Rai, released his latest album Liberté after five years of silence. The album should have come with the warning label “The King is Dead Long Live the King”. Ever since Khaled’s self titled album he successfully fused traditional Rai beats with pop, hip-hop, reggae and other world beats. This fusion brought Khaled to the international stage with hits such as Didi, Aïcha and Chebba. With every new album Khaled tweaked and tuned his music till it reached its epitome with his 1996 album Sahra. Ever since then while other Arabic musicians were able to keep their music relevant and up to date, Khaled failed to keep his music fresh. It seems that Khaled in his heart of hearts yearned for the more traditional Rai sounds of the early 80s, which meshed traditional Arabic instruments with electrical synthesizers. Liberté is Khaled’s biggest gamble. Liberté ditches the world fusion music that Khaled was known for and goes back to the traditional roots of not only Rai music but Arabic music too.  I personally thought eight minutes long songs with a mawal intro are long dead, but apparently they live on in Liberté.

The bottom line is if you like Khaled for his world music fusion, then “the king is dead”. On the other hand, if you like Khaled for his early 80s music then “long live the king”.

Tracklist:

1. Hiya Ansadou (Intro)
2. Hiya Ansadou
3. Raikoum (Intro)
4. Raikoum
5. Ya Bouya Kirani
6. Gnaoui
7. Zabana
8. Liberté (Intro)
9. Liberté
10. Soghpa
11. Sbari
12. Sidi Rabbi
13. Yamina (Intro)
14. Yamina
15. Pabi Ntya
16. Ya Minoun (Intro)
17. Ya Minoun
18. Km Même Pas Fatigué (Bonus)

Video excerpt: