Waseem Sayegh » Album Review http://www.waseem.com Things that are on my mind Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:02:33 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 The King is Dead, Long Live the King http://www.waseem.com/2009/04/10/the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king/ http://www.waseem.com/2009/04/10/the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:10:52 +0000 waseem http://www.waseem.com/?p=127 LibertéKhaled, 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:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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