Sometime in the winter of  ’93, I heard about Didi. Then I heard the song. Then I learnt that the music was a form called Rai, and the singer was an Algerian named Khaled Hadj Brahm. My uncle ( my maternal grandfather’s younger brother’s youngest son, and a year elder to me ) won a prize at a local dance competition groving to this song. Even AR Rahman, in one of his interviews, mentioned how much he loved Khaled’s music. My father bought a cassette for me, some label called Peacock Music which, as I found out from The North-Eastern Sun that used to run anti-piracy ads, was a pirated label. That’s why it cost only 22 rupees.

Then came the mandatory follow-ups. Khaled sang Didi in Hindi, yessir, with atrocious pronounciation and much rolling of the words “Bharr de bharr de, dil ki dua oh dilruba”. The HMV cassette ( again, bought by my father ) also had Mory Kante’s original Tama Tama and some wacky song called Nappy Rap (which I am still looking for, it was THAT weird a song) A song called Ladki Ladki was featured in a Hindi film called ‘Shrimaan Aashiq’, the lyrics of the song modified to make it an anti-women/anti-love song.

It was much later that I began to listen to the other Khaled songs on the  album, and whatever else I could find. El Harbi  was cool, so was N’ssi N’ssi. Hey Ouedi featured a stunning violin solo( or was that some other traditional bowed instrument?) In college, loads of friends had mp3 collections of Khaled’s songs filed under World Music, and it was a treat rediscovering the the old ones and trying out newer tracks. Aicha Aicha, later remixed as a hiphop track, has one of the funkiest guitar riffs ever. There was a live version of El Harbi, a Bhangra mix, a Club version, none of which has the charm of the original version.Sahra (named after Khaled’s daughter), Wahrane ( a tribute to his hometown), Yalla Bina ( the only Khaled song whose Bhangra version sounded better than the original).

Ya Rayah ( which I suspect is a cover version of a folk song), has been copied by Sanjeev Darshan in ‘Mann’ as Kaali Naagin Jaisi.

Seems the guys who produced Khaled’s eponymous album ( which was his first international venture) were Don Was and Michael Brook. The same Michael Brook who collaborated with U Srinivas on Dream and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on Musst Musst and Night Song. Man, that guy pops up everywhere. Seems that album charted maximum sales in (gulp!) India. I wonder if they counted the pirated albums too, when they came up with this statistic.

Khaled: Live in Paris was an absolute delight. Live versions of all the familiar songs, variations aplenty. He is accompanied by fellow Rai artistes Faudel and Rachid Taha, and a superb set of instrumentalists ( the electric guitar solo that comes at the end of Didi , ooooh), and the three voices complement each other very well. Abdul Kader is a song that’s traditional, but sounds great live, with three voices and a combination of ethnic Middle-eastern and western instruments. The energy of the live performance is just awesome, as you can hear from the audience response ( people singing along to most of the songs )

Some Khaled songs sound very poppish, completely Western instrumentation. I have never been able to like Chebba, for instance. Not that the song is bad, but a voice like that deserves better.

Find of the week: El Harbi Wine (from the album Kenza ) was one of the songs in my Khaled folder, which I heard pretty recently. Starts off with a very familiar tabla beat,( later I remembered it was the same as the beat at the beginning of Tere Bina [Sanoo Ek Pal] from Musst Musst. Hmm, the Michael Brooks connection strikes again) and then Khaled is joined by a female voice who sings in Hindi. The song is very similar in mood to Hisham Abbas’s Naari Naari. a little cheesy at times, overexaggerated Bollywood homages and all.The female voice interested me, and a couple of googles led me to her name. She is Amar, a UK based singer who has her own album , part of which is produced by Nitin Sawhney. Interestingly, Amar is the same voice I had heard on the song O Meri Jaan  in Talvin Singh’s ‘Sounds of The Asian Underground‘. The song said ‘Talvin Singh feat Amar’ and I didn’t realise Amar was the female voice.

Khaled is cool. Definitely.

Note: If you listen to Khaled, and like his music, you might also be interested in albums like Jimmy Page/Robert Plant’s No Quarter, which has interesting reinterpretations of Led Zep songs with middle-eastern instruments. Deep Forest: Live in Japan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s Shehbaaz,Hisham Abbas’s Naari Naari, and I can’t seem to think of any other album right now.