Mohamed Khelifati, alias Cheb Mami, was born on July 11th 1966 in a working class quarter of Saïda, a small town 200 kilometres South of Oran (the capital of raï), on the edge of the high plateaux of the Sahara. From an early age, "the kid" loved to hide in his mother’s robe during marriage and baptism ceremonies and immerse himself in the percussion music of the "meddahates" (the traditional women’s orchestra’s) and the songs they sang afterwards on the secrets of love, expressed in crude terms to fresh young damsels, or on the torments of wives cloistered by their husbands. This was his initiation to the musical traditions of both the Bedouins and the city dwellers. Aged eight he preferred singing in the street to playing football with an old tin can. From twelve onwards, in the grand tradition of apprentice raï musicians, he earned money from paid dedications by joining in with his falsetto in the crude threnodies of the "maddahates" or at male banquets.
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