Festival Banlieues Bleues - Concert : El Besta + Sofiane Saidi

- El Besta
High-energy concerts in Oran quickly launched the El Besta rumor: an acoustic raï that combines tradition and modernity, sublimated by the incandescent voice of Sofiane Merabet and the haunting accordion of Kiss Laredj. Originally from Mostaganem, a port city in Oran, the group dove fervently into the repertoire of raï classics, Cheb Abdelhak, Cheb Hamid, Cheb Hasni or Cheb Khaled, icons of a genre in full revival. After Oran and Marseille, the group conquered Paris and its Cabaret sauvage with two packed concerts where the carnal power and rebellious energy of a century-old raï with perpetual youth were found.

- Sofiane Saidi "Wa7di (live)"
A child of Sidi Bel Abbès, it is from Paris and its suburbs that Sofiane Saidi has revived raï on the dance floors, establishing himself as the figurehead of a decidedly mutant genre. With Mazalda, a psychedelic sextet from Lyon, he dressed raï with rock guitars, electro synths, derboukas and flutes, for an emblematic album, El Njoum "the stars", which restored all its letters of nobility to a music forgotten by the public. Sofiane Saidi is the heir to raï, right down to his posture, garage rock or Acid Arab. It is in this state of mind that the idea of ​​an electro raï solo germinated during the covid epidemic. He named it Wahdi, “all alone” in Arabic, and tested it in clubs around the world, to create “a night experience, a subversive exploration, a transgressive charge, the raï soul in an electronic body”.

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