Sofiane Saidi

Born in Sidi Bel Abbès in western Algeria, Sofiane Saidi continues the raï tradition while opening it to forms linked to electronic music and North African festive repertoires. Trained very young in singing in an environment where raï, chaâbi and popular music circulated widely, he developed a flexible voice supported by melismas, a rhythmic call and a direct relationship to dance. Active between Algeria and France, he has evolved his work on festival stages as well as in more nocturnal contexts, where his approach takes on a more frontal and repetitive dimension. An important step in this trajectory was built with the collective Mazalda, with whom he released the album El Ndjoum in 2018, combining brass, electronic pulse and structures inherited from raï. Sofiane Saidi also appears in collaborations with Acid Arab, another space for dialogue between Maghrebi music and club culture. In his tracks he assembles ornamented vocal lines, circular rhythms and a continuous tension between Algerian popular heritage and contemporary formats of the electronic scene.