I stumbled across this excellent rai tape via the great Mangue Music blog, which shared a link to a bunch of live world music performances from Melkweg in Amsterdam that were recorded and released on cassette in the 1980s and 1990s. The cassettes are available to stream on Soundcloud. (I grabbed the above image from Discogs.)
The one that caught my eye/ear is called Nuit Arabe and dates from 1989. The hour-long cassette features performances from Cheb Kader, Chaba Fadela & Cheb Sahraoui, Cheb Mami, and Cheb Khaled. So great to hear these singers in front of excited audiences in their prime! There is some backstory to the rai performances at Melkweg available here in Dutch. Although the artists are all Algerian, Amsterdam has a large Moroccan community, so the shows were marketed heavily and successfully to "Moroccan Amsterdammers".
Hope you're all well here in the new year! I really will get back to Moroccan music posts this year - got some cool vinyl things to share. We recently moved (just a few miles from our old house, but it was still a lot of work), and the genocide in Gaza has made it hard to concentrate on fun artistic things for the last 15 months. Still, there is love, music, beauty, and justice. Wishing you the best of those things in 2025.
Nuit Arabe - Live at Melkweg (1989)
Milkyway Cassettes – 012
Chaba Fadela
A1) Diri Hak ou Hak
Chaba Fadela & Cheb Sahraoui
A2) Melite Men Klam Nass
Cheb Khaled
A3) Zina Halima
A4) Kharjou Gueddamna
A5) Alach Tfaregna
Cheb Kader
B1) Ya Zina Diri Latay
B2) N'Sit Rohi Maak
Cheb Mami
B3) Selou Ala Nabi
B4) Hada Raykoum - Ana Dellali
Stream above or at Soundcloud.
