Houari is one of the protagonists of the pop generation of Raï singers, along with Khaled, Cheb Sahraoui and Cheb Hamid, and although he might not be as much of a household name in the West, he was the first to incorporate electronic synths into his arrangements and to tour North America. You can hear his eagerness to experiment with the new technology in Rani m’damar, which combines drums, derbuka (he originally started out as a derbuka player in the 1970s) and lush strings with funky synth melodies.

– Megan Iacobini de Fazio