Womad

Rachid Taha

The original African soul rebel

These days, it's nigh on impossible to read anything about Rachid Taha without Joe Strummer's name following close behind. See? We're guilty of it too. Not only were there strong rumours of a collaboration between the two at the time of the Clash man's tragically premature death in 2002, Taha went on to record a majestic Arabic version of Rock The Casbah (called - hey! - Rock El Casbah). And the association didn't end there. Why, only a few months back Joe's widow Lucinda presented Rachid with his latest gong at the BBC Radio 3 Awards For World Music. But the Algerian rocker doesn't need the Strummer connection in order to prosper. He's very much his own man, his collision of rebel rock with North African styles like rai and chaabi defining him as one of the planet's most hard-hitting musical messengers who counts Brian Eno, Robert Plant and Patti Smith among his admirers and collaborators. But despite all the acclaim, Rachid quite rightly remains unrepentant about singing - in that Gitanes-rough voice of his - in his mother tongue. "In Arabic, blue is blue and red is red and black is black. When I sing in French, colours become diluted. Red becomes pink, black becomes grey."

Biog by Nige Tassell