Regional/Cultural Day
Ruz el Oran
The city that gave birth to rai, the most exportable Algerian art form since chaabi. Oran is Algeria's second city and its most contradictory: Spanish in origin, French in architecture, Algerian in soul, and musical in every bone. The rai that emerged from Oran in the 1970s and 1980s was the sound of the streets: synthesizers, drum machines, and lyrics about love, drinking, and defiance. Cheb Khaled, born in Oran in 1960, became the King of Rai and took the music global. Cheb Mami, born in Saïda near Oran, added the melismatic vocal style that made "Desert Rose" with Sting a worldwide hit. Oran is also the city of the Spanish exile, the Ottoman corsair, and the French naval base. Every wave left something behind.
