Cheb Hasni and how raï refused to die

In 1994, Cheb Hasni—known to millions as Le Prince du Raï—was walking through his neighborhood in Oran, carrying a wheelchair as a gift for a disabled neighbor. Three young men approached him. Believing they were fans, Hasni stopped with his usual warmth to greet them. He shook the first man’s hand, but before he could reach the second, a gun was drawn. Two bullets—one to the head, the other to the neck—killed him instantly. His murder was not an isolated act, but part of a wave of tragedies engulfing Algeria: a tide of fear, grief, and terror that touched everything from the fate of the presidency to Cheb Khaled’s decision to flee for France.

Algeria on the Edge

Six years earlier, Algeria—ruled solely by the socialist National Liberation Front (NLF) since independence—was already teetering on the edge. Oil revenues collapsed, unemployment soared, and housing shortages worsened. In October 1988, restless youth poured into the streets during protests calling for President Chadli Bendjedid to step down. The riots were violently suppressed, leaving nearly 500 dead and over 1,000 wounded—an unprecedented eruption of violence in independent Algeria. Shaken, the regime made a radical move: it opened the door to multiparty politics. For the first time since independence, Algerians were offered the ballot box as a genuine path to change.

The results shocked the nation—and the ruling party. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), founded in the wake of the 1988 protests, swept the polls. Inspired by the Iranian revolution and buoyed by the collapse of Soviet socialism, the party’s rise alarmed entrenched power centers. In January 1992, fearing a radical shift, the army intervened: President Bendjedid stepped aside, elections were annulled, and FIS was banned. Reform, Algeria learned, was possible—just never with Islamists at the helm.

The Black Decade 

The ensuing years plunged Algeria into one of the bloodiest chapters of modern Arab history. Parts of the Islamist movement radicalized, giving rise to armed insurgent groups. Former fighters from Afghanistan joined domestic factions, while the state responded with repression and arrests. The battlefield spread into neighborhoods, villages, and schools. Assassinations of intellectuals, journalists, and officials became tragically routine.

Even Mohamed Boudiaf, the revolutionary brought back from exile as a symbol of stability, was assassinated in June 1992. By the mid-1990s, civil war had engulfed the country, with extremist factions such as the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) adopting scorched-earth tactics targeting civilians. Algeria had become a nation at war with itself.

Amid this spiraling violence, Algeria’s cultural heartbeat—its artists and performers—became targets. Maâtoub Lounès, Tahar Djaout, and Izzeddine Mejoubi—a singer-poet, journalist, and actor—were all assassinated during the Black Decade. Yet the killing that shocked the nation most was Cheb Hasni’s.

By 1993, Hasni had already drawn criticism from Islamist factions, particularly after a concert deemed ‘degenerate’ for its mixing of men and women. His Rai—lively, intimate, and defiant—echoed the cabarets of Oran and the city’s French colonial past. To conservatives, it was scandalous; to millions, it was life itself. His popularity only heightened tensions around the genre, ultimately taking his life on September 29, 1994.

Raï, Exile & Diaspora

Hasni’s death—at the height of his prolific career—shocked Algerian society and hit artists particularly hard. In the aftermath, many saw the country’s future as bleak, with little space for artists or intellectuals. Numerous musicians fled to France, including Cheb Khaled, Cheba Zahouania, and Souad Massi, joining an already established diaspora of Rachid Taha, Cheikha Remitti, and Raina Rai—artists who struggled to find footing amid such turbulence.

From this diaspora emerged a new wave of music, either sparked or intensified by Hasni’s untimely death. Grief and loss ran deep in their work, reflecting the scars of war on every aspect of Algerian life. Singing to the homeland became the movement’s defining theme. Decades later, Hasni’s songs still echo through the streets of Oran and Parisian neighborhoods, embodying resilience, love in the face of fear, and a culture that refused to be silenced.

Cheb Khaled sings for his country in Lillah, Rachid Taha in Ya Rayeh, Cheb Mami in Au Pays de Merveilles—just a few examples of songs steeped in longing and homesickness. That yearning reached its apex in 1,2,3 Soleil, where Khaled, Taha, and Faudel’s voices collided in Paris’ Bercy Arena, recording a live album that sold millions and topped charts across Europe. Each track blazed with nostalgia, resilience, and pride—a bold, electric celebration of exile that turned alienation into music that refused to be silenced.

A Legacy of Resistance, Resilience & Pain

Cheb Hasni did not remain silent. He sang for his homeland, for its pain, for love, the struggles of the youth, and the dream of peace. His album Baida Mon Amour, widely regarded as one of the greatest Arab albums ever, sold over 120 million copies—a reflection of his profound impact. And with such influence came defiance; Hasni embodied a force far stronger than bullets. His death underscores a bitter truth: art and politics are inseparable, and the power of cultural expression can provoke even the most violent resistance. 

The life and death of Hasni highlight the inescapable entanglement of art, politics, and violence. In societies under stress, creative expression becomes both a mirror and a threat—reflecting collective hopes, grievances, and identities, while simultaneously challenging entrenched powers. Artists like Hasni are often caught at this intersection: their work a voice for the people, their presence a target for those who fear change. The legacy of their art persists, reminding us that where politics and culture meet, the stakes are always profound, and silence is never neutral.

Hasni’s fate is not just an Algerian tragedy—it speaks to a wider reality across the Middle East and North Africa, where art has long been both sanctuary and battlefield. In our region, music, film, and poetry have carried the weight of generations: their frustrations, rebellions, and longing for freedom. Yet just as often, these voices are the first to be silenced when politics harden and violence takes hold. Hasni’s story reminds us that here, cultural expression is never mere entertainment—it is survival, resistance, and memory. And though regimes and wars may try to bury it, the songs always outlast the silence.

And it is not only Hasni’s death that carries this meaning. Across the region, from the Maghreb to the Levant, countless cultural icons have met similar fates. His story stands as a symbol of what many can endure. The Black Decade was not merely an internal conflict that turned a nation upside down—it carved a scar that Algeria still feels today. And what unfolded there was not so different from what has taken place in other parts of the region. These lessons must be remembered, built upon, and guarded so that such nightmares never repeat.