Ya Rayah, where did it take me?

As many things happen in this life, Ya Rayah happened by accident.

I'm a confessed melomaniac. To say the truth I'm an incoherent and unstoppable music eater. I can die over Manu Chao or Eminem as well as Dahmane El Harrachi.

- Who?!

I was looking for some specific artist’ music when I ran into Ya Rayah. Its wide range of notes and sadness/joyfulness stuck in my head like calling me back somewhere. I couldn’t identify this feeling. The song rested there for some days until I decided to listen to it over and over again until I fell asleep. (Yeah, I love to do that).

I don’t know anything about music except for what my ears tell me. Its rhythm was so perfect, its exotic sounds were so moving and its words were pure poetry, every particle of human voice perfectly linked one to another at a faultless pulse. I’m greatly moved by beauty and I was greatly moved by this. The name of the song is “Ya Rayah” (Oh, Immigrant or The passenger) and it’s a lament originally created by this guy, Dahmane El Harrachi, Algerian, a deceased Cheebi singer.

Cheebi is a popular Algerian genre which has its origins in traditional lyrics sang in order to instruct young people about life, moral, heritage, etc. Ya Rayah lyrics are about how immigrants will always carry the weight of their origins in their heart wherever they go and the strong calling of the homeland which will call them back generations after generations. I was amazed when I learnt about the lyrics, since that was the exact feeling I got when listening to it the first time without knowing anything about the song or the genre. I’m not an emigrant (Right?)… Maybe we all are a little bit immigrants, who can be sure in this multiethnic part of the world? And now it strikes me. Could it be something like my grandparents’ blood calling back?

I think the fact that makes this song so special is that the singer empathizes with this unfortunate immigrant confessing he knows about the pain and melancholy of departure himself, like giving an ultimate sense of Nation, falling for the same fate together.

Its North African sounds took me there and made me think about refugees. Maybe that’s the feeling, the feel for a love-starved land, the feel for displaced people and wondering cultures seeking for an outer and inner peace that is taking too long to arrive.


I wish the sound quality was better, but hey...