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King of Rock n’Raï Rachid Taha Dies Aged 59

September 13, 2018
(FILES) In this file photo taken on August 10, 2007 French singer Rachid Taha performs on the ‘World Music Main stage’, on the third evening of the one-week festival on Hajogyar (Shipyard) Island in Budapest, Hungary. Singer Rachid Taha, died at the age of 59, of a heart attack, in the night from September 11 to September 12, 2018 announced his family. / AFP PHOTO / Attila KISBENEDEK

Famed French-Algerian singer Rachid Taha has succumbed to a heart-attack in Paris on Wednesday, as per the BBC. “It is with regret and immense sadness that his son Lyes, his family and relatives, his friends and his record label Naïve, announce the death of artist Rachid Taha, following a heart attack overnight at his home in the Lilas [near Paris],” the singer’s family said in a statement sent to AFP. According to local French outlets, such as Le Parisien, the beloved artist will not be buried in France where he had lived most of his life since the age of 10, but in Algeria where he was born in 1958. Taha was known to have incorporated raï, traditional Algerian folk music, into rock. He was particularly fond of the The Clash and Led Zeppelin; he rose to fame following his debut with group Carte de Séjour. Although raï music did not gain tremendous popularity in Egypt as in other North African countries, Taha is most celebrated for ‘Ya Rayah’ and ‘Abdul Qader’ (in collaboration with Faudel and Cheb Khaled). In 2004, Taha covered ‘Rock the Casbah’ by The Clash which he renamed as…


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