Algerian raï sprang up as a working‑class insurrection of melody and myth. In the border-town cabarets, French and Maghrebi-pop templates fused with shaʿbi songcraft. Primitive drums, flutes and brass were replaced by boisterous folk voices that openly talked of life’s struggles with candid, often taboo lyrics delivered by young cheb (male) and chaba (female) performers.
After independence, raï telescoped into a dance pop idiom. Ornate accordion and sax lines gave way to drum machines and synthesizers by the 1980s, producing globally famous stars (Cheb Mami, Khaled, etc.) and a diaspora of fans. By the 2000s its circuitry had gone fully digital.
In this lineage grew way-way, Algerian youth’s hyper-digital offshoot of raï. Way-way’s sound is idiosyncratic, a handful of glitchy drum loops underlie tootling Yamaha synths that mimic traditional timbres in a warped fashion. Moroccan border cities like Oujda host underground way-way parties, and even closed frontiers cannot stop raï’s reach. In short, way-way is raï’s cyber‑folk insurgency, a DIY, poly‑rhythmic folk-tech music that celebrates spontaneity and kitsch while still carrying raï’s irreverent spirit.
The artwork for Sabahu Al Kheir Men Zouj, a garish collage of pixel phones, kit‑chic motifs and North African street scenes. It is an analogue dive into digital nostalgia, stitching together journeys and encounters across Casablanca, Algiers, Beirut and Berlin.
In pursuit of the way-way sound, ZOUJ (Spotify) schlepped in family cars across the Maghreb, undertook living-room seshes with Algerian DJs, and a wild hunt for the Yamaha A1000, the vaunted early-2000s arranger. This battered grey keyboard became the heart of his production. Indeed, ZOUJ himself jokes that “the centre piece of the record is the Yamaha A1000 Oriental Workstation-Synthesizer,” he tells YUNG, after an absurd saga of floppy disks and patch-hunting, “I’m not the sharpest tool sometimes.” This self-effacing quip encapsulates the project’s mix of earnest gearhead fervor and absurd DIY gusto.
Crucially, the A1000’s built-in raï leads (the honky, buzzy textures meant to emulate folk horns or bowed rababa) anchor every track. ZOUJ layers them over lightweight, looping percussion and tightly coiled 808 sub-bass. His programming bends way-way’s spare template to Berlin club logic. Drums often tread between straight four‑on‑the‑floor and chaotic shaʿbi syncopations, with staccato kicks and handclaps dumped into the arranger or added in his DAW. The sound is saturated and weathered, the synth lines cut through like thin phone-wire leads, and many parts feel pitched-up, detuned or tape‑wobbled.
Vocally, each track takes its cue from shaʿbi tradition: sing‑talk refrains and call‑and‑response patterns soaked in Auto-Tune. Overall, the EP fuses the crusty clichés of old raï with a hard‑nosed club bent. It’s mournful and meme-ish, satirical and sincere in equal measure.
In sum, Sabahu Al Kheir Men Zouj is neither pure revival nor a slick reinvention. It feels more like a found mixtape. The battered A1000 sits at its centre, but the music around it ranges from folkish to futuristic. ZOUJ never overstates himself; this is less a thesis on raï than an invitation to explore its alleyways. The sound is messy, joyful, genre‑bending and very much alive.
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