News & Updates — Cheikha Rimitti

Cheikha Rimitti was a pioneering female raï singer in Algeria and beyond. She grew up in poverty before joining a song & dance troupe in the late '30s. She broke custom in the early '40s by singing about sex and booze in a deeply taboo environment in Algeria, using filthy slang and a deeper ("unfemale"?) voice in the process. In 1954 she encouraged young women to lose their virginity, causing a major scandal ("Charrak Gattà", a record still suppressed to this day). This found her banned in her homeland and she took to working in France and elsewhere, staying largely...