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Sample Track 1:
"Rock el Casbah" from Tékitoi
Sample Track 2:
"Winta" from Tékitoi
Sample Track 3:
"Dima (Always)" from Tékitoi
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Tékitoi
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Taha rocks in pan-Mediterranean style

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Chicago Sun-Times, Taha rocks in pan-Mediterranean style >>

BY ANDERS SMITH LINDALL

Sometimes the simplest questions are the hardest to answer. It's in that spirit that Rachid Taha named his latest album, "Tekitoi," a slangy word that approximates the French T'es qui toi? -- roughly, "Who are you?"

Born in Algeria and raised there until age 10 when his family moved to France, Taha's cultural identity is complicated. He's a hybrid, not quite one or the other but a little bit of both.

His political stance is just as difficult to define. Now 46 and touring behind his seventh solo album, the singer and songwriter has made a career of being outspoken, alternately railing at anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe and repression in the Muslim world or rallying his listeners with odes to freedom and love. He comes off both prickly and playful, oppositional and idealistic.

Taha's sound, meanwhile, is even trickier to pigeonhole. Over the years he has drawn on North African musics both traditional and pop, as well as Western rock, punk, dance and hip-hop. The list of players on "Tekitoi" tells the story: In addition to Steve Hillage, the British rock guitarist and producer who is a veteran Taha collaborator, guests include Cairo's Egyptian String Ensemble, the Georgian singer Kaha Beri, and even the legendary soundscape-spinner Brian Eno. These and other varied talents combine to make the disc one of the most vibrant, exciting and unusual rock-based albums you're likely to hear this year.

Taha had just his six-piece band in tow Friday at the Logan Square Auditorium, but they ranged deftly across cultures, employing electric guitar, bass, keys, drums and the North African mandolute and tabla in a singular style that might be called pan-Mediterranean.

They played rock with a funk groove or a dance beat, the guitar howling like a cornered dog, the haunted twang of the mandolute and hollow thud of tabla adding a distinctly Arab flair.

On the microphone, Taha commanded a range from high and smooth to a guttural growl that might menace even Tom Waits. The growl came in handy to put across his tough-minded message in songs like "H'asbu-Hum (Ask Them for an Explanation)" ("Propagandists, destroyers, humiliators ... get rid of them!"), while the croon was a weapon of mass seduction in the hip-swaying "Shuf (Look)."

Taha spoke and sang in Arabic, French, and a little broken Spanish and English here and there. (At one point, it took several languages to chase dancing fans off the stage. He tried both Gracias, luego and a deadpan Merci, mesdames. Au revoir.)

Of course, a performer could have worse problems than an audience too eager to move to the music. At the peak of its momentum, Friday's crowd was a sea of flailing arms and gyrating hips. Their movements mirrored Taha himself, who emoted like a smaller, swarthy Bono with long dark locks, a cigarette, patchy stubble and oversized shades.

The set's capstone and closing number summed up Taha in a nutshell. A fiery, joyous version of "Rock the Casbah" sung in Arabic, it embraced the Clash at the same time it turned the great punks' legacy upside-down.

Anders Smith Lindall is a Chicago free-lance writer.

 07/04/05 >> go there
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