Журнал "Колодец" > Rachid Taha press arhive

Combat rocker

The vision of THE CLASH lives in French Arab superstar Rachid Taha's crazy Casbah jive

Foto by Richard Dumas

It wasn't quite 20 years ago today that Irish rock superstars U2 recorded a live version of THE BEATLES' song "Helter Skelter" for the "Rattle and Hum" concert flick/tour doc - November 8, 1987, to be precise, at Denver, Colorado's McNichols Arena.

"Helter Skelter" was THE BEATLES' most ferocious tune, and the fact that the lyrics concerned a slide in a children's playground didn't stop psycho Nazi hippie pseudo-guru Charles Manson and his murderous "family" from adopting it as their anthem. In fact, the title was scrawled in human blood on a wall of the Tate/Polanski home, site of the infamous massacre that's come to define not only Manson and co. but the death of the Age of Aquarius.

U2's was a memorable cover version, not so much in itself as for its introduction. "Charles Manson stole this song from THE BEATLES", crowed singer Bono from the stage. "We're stealing it back".

While it would be grossly inappropriate to compare the American Armed Forces to the Manson Family, it was nonetheless comparably inappropriate for the U.S. military to adopt THE CLASH song "Rock the Casbah" as its unofficial anthem during Operation Desert Storm, aka Gulf War One. "Rock the Casbah" was in fact the very first song played on the international Armed Forces Radio when that war was declared.

While "Rock the Casbah" is not to be mistaken for an explicitly anti-war song, its "liberation" by the Yanks was "just typical and despicable", in the late CLASH frontman Joe Strummer's estimation.

The good news is that 15 years and a second Gulf War later, "Rock the Casbah" has been, shall we say, reappropriated.

Rhorho on the go

"It was a way of readjusting things and bringing the songs of THE CLASH and Joe Strummer back to their proper use, that is to say, to the people", says Rachid Taha, whose ass-kicking, Arabic-language cover version "Rock El Casbah," from his latest album "Tékitoi?", is spreading shock waves well past the borders of his base country France.

"The military always use what suits them, but they don't talk about the paradox - a song can be destabilizing, it can have a way of destabilizing power sometimes. Then after that, they use it themselves, as if to say, "Ah, you see? We have a sense of humour". But they don't".

Algerian-born and a Frenchman since the age of 10, Taha has a history of provocative cover versions.

His music career began with his Maghrebi punk trio CARTE DE SÉJOUR in 1981 (the name refers to the temporary work visas issued to Maghrebis - North African Arabs - coming to France), following the lead of their heroes, THE CLASH. The band made its mark in 1986 with their take on Charles Trenet's "Douce France". An effusive mash note to his nation penned in the middle of World War II, Trenet's "Douce France" took on a very different tone when delivered by a gang of angry, disaffected Arab kids. The left cheered, the right seethed, but few in France just shrugged.

As furious as he was at the racism of "real Frenchmen", Taha didn't hesitate to point his lyrical cannon in the other direction. CARTE DE SÉJOUR's first album, the 1983 release "Rhorhomanie" (rhorhos being second-generation French Arabs), offered the tune "Zoubida". lashing out at religious extremism and cultural isolationism in his own community.

Wolves of the desert

In that respect, Taha is particularly suited to tackle "Rock the Casbah". The song's lyrics specifically target fundamentalist Muslim heavies and their vicious repression of music, rock or otherwise (a nasty tradition going back centuries). Taha may not like the imperious bullshit dished out by conservative white Christians, but he saves his fiercest venom for Islam's throwbacks.

"For me, bin Laden and all those bringing this war, they come from the same place. It's the desert - an intellectual desert as much as any geopolitical desert.
It's spoken about as though it were an apocalyptic force, an extraordinary and enormous force. But I'll tell you, in France, Islamic fundamentalism is very tiny - maybe one or two per cent of people think that way. The vast majority is eager for democracy, eager to evolve. The women, who are the majority in many countries, and many Arab or Muslim intellectuals, are eager for democracy and to move towards the future. In the West, in certain media, they speak a great deal more about what frightens them, because it's a way to keep the people under its power. It's a way to say, "You see, if you don't listen, the big bad wolf will come and devour you". At this point in time, the big bad wolf is Islam.
Most people see what's happened in Iraq - the people there voted, and even if it wasn't an entirely democratic process, at least there was a semblance of Arab democracy. It's a beginning, in Palestine as well. I think there are many more people who want to move toward that sort of politics, than those who want to move toward fundamentalism. In most cases, the fundamentalists aren't of the people. They're people who come from power, don't have that power now and so they use fundamentalism to take power. Without it, they're screwed".

Punk planet

If there's one thing Taha's an extremist about, it's shattering the shackles of cultural isolation. Since CARTE DE SÉJOUR called it quits in '89, Taha has pursued a solo career that has incorporated the fury of rock, the heat of Mexican mariachi music, the trance state of techno and of course Arabic sounds - raï (the Maghrebi salsa, if you will) and the coarser, bluesy chaâbi.

On the latter note, it should be pointed out that in '98, Taha joined the bill at the famous "1, 2, 3 soleil" show in Paris, a concert before 15.000 that triangulated the scruffy troublemaker with Khaled and Faudel, the elder statesman and young smoothy of raï, respectively.

No sign in Taha's tunes of gnomes flying in teacups, though, despite his extensive collaboration with Steve Hillage of out-there prog rockers GONG. "He's been my comrade, we've worked together for 22 years", says Taha. "He's become my alter ego, someone with whom I share my discoveries, my wishes and also the musical future. It's a bit like Simon and Garfunkel, but better, because we have a very solid complicity".

Simon and Garfunkel - or maybe Strummer and Jones? Taha is one of a number of current acts that answer the question Strummer proposed with the turn-of-the-'80s efforts of THE CLASH. Will there one day be a global rebel rock sound? A hybridized, radicalized, technologically savvy sound, populist punk with a funky beat?

Check the Afro-punk of LES TÊTES BRULÉES, the Desi defiance of M.I.A. and ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION, the Basque rage'n'reggae of Fermin Muguruza, or just tune in to Radio Rachid.

"We're all of this same way of thinking. When you listen to "Sandinista" or "London Calling", there were many musical expressions that came from all over the world. There was the electronic spirit, the trance, the rock, all kinds of things. It was like an Arab grocery, where one can find all kinds of things to eat and drink".

But is it a one-way street? Taha can bring a more sympathetic view of Arab culture to the West, true, from Mexico to Mahattan to the Main. But can he bring the "destabilizing" impact of punk to all the Muslim kids worldwide getting the beatdown from the Koranic brownshirts for kissing in public or digging that crazy Casbah sound, knowing full well that "Sharif don't like it?"

Yes, says Taha. "The proof is that I've played in Egypt, Jordan and countries like that, and it opened their eyes. Now we even hear some music from these places reflecting that. I got a call from an Egyptian friend, an Egyptian singer, who wanted to do music with me, because my vision of music interests her. I think there are some very promising echoes out there".

Rupert Bottenberg
"Montreal Mirror", Vol.20 №35, Feb 24-Mar 2.2005

   
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