Bellemou

Born in 1947, Messaoud Bellemou started learning the trumpet following the encouragements of a french teacher from his village: the elder man was convinced that the young boy had serious music predispositions and could probably escape from a life of labour in the fields.

In the early 70’s, Bellemou injected a modern style in Raï, replacing the ghasba flute (a flute made of reed) by his unique sound of trumpet, with a spicy hispanic touch.

Sidi’h’bibi, one of his first reccordings, made an huge succes in Algeria. It’s a very personnal version of a beautiful melody from the Judeo Moroccan folklore that many people actually recorded, one of the most interesting version being the furious rock version recorded in 1989 by the french band Mano Negra.


- Bellemou (singer Boualem Bouchkara) – Sidi hbibi (Algéria/1973) 6:17

In company of his friends Bouteiba Sghir & Benfissa Younés, Bellamou came to the big city of Oran in order to play music in the clubs and earn a living with their art. They made several recordings together, true classics from this era, creating a new sound which announced the next generation of Raï production, from which big star of the genre are issued.


- Bouteïba Sghir - Gouli Wah (Algéria/1975) 5:08

Although Bellemou is now recognized as the father of pop Raï, he's stil living in his village, in a modest way, teaching music to children.


- Gana El Maghnaoui & Bellemou - Lala H´bibi (Algérie/1996) - 3:58

For more Bellemou stuff, you can get the Algerian-Proto-Rai-Underground compilation on Sublime Frequencies.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Tracks 1 & 2 : Compilation "Barbés café Vol.1" 1999 - Label Night & day
Track 3 : "Le roi de la trompette Raï" 1996 - label Blue silver