December, 2004, Khaled came to Los Angeles to put the final touches on the U.S. release of his album Ya Rayi.  He sat down with Banning Eyre and Sean Barlow for a lengthy interview, over three hours of thoughts and recollections.  As a mid-summer feature, hot on the heels of the Khaled and Friends tour, we now give you that interview in three parts.  The first installment focuses on Khaled’s youth.  The second on his early career and varied opinions on a wide-ranging set of topics.  The third and final segment deals with Ya Rayi, and the changes he made to it for the U.S. release.

Banning Eyre:   Let’s talk about the work you doing here in Los Angeles.   Let’s start with “Love to the People,” the new song that you have just created with Carlos Santana and K.C. Porter and Dawn Elder.  What is the story of this song?

Khaled:   The story of this song is that I think the whole world is in love with Santana.  Ever since the 1960s, I've been in love.  Another guy I have loved since then, a big guy who I got to meet before he died when we did a big concert together in Rome, was Ray Charles.  That gave me great happiness.  It had been my dream to meet him, and we met, and we sang in the Coliseum about peace in the world.  Why do the people of the Middle East, my home, love Ray Charles?  Because he's one of those beings who opens things up.  Like Stevie Wonder, Elvis Presley, these big personalities.  Bob Marley.  I went to his studio.  His wife sang with me.  There are many great people that I have wanted to meet in my life.  For me these are important people, people who have fought for things, to pass messages, people we need to honor, because they have honored us.

With K. C., I can say I have always talked about Santana.  With all the problems that pass in the world, Santana said something when he was on tour in Europe that really touched me.  He was talking with a journalist one time, about love and life, and he said, "Me, I'm a musician, but when I go on stage with my guitar, I don't go up there with a Kalishnikov to kill people.  No.  I kill people with music.  And I shoot people without killing them, because music reinforces life.  It nourishes it.” 

Afterwards, Dawn, my manager, came to France and to a number of concerts.   Don Was is someone I've worked with in the past.  We started with "Didi,” and we didn't do bad work after that.  He's a big personality for me.  He became my big brother.  We're not just friends.  We are brothers.  When I was young, and I saw people like this on television, I thought these are not people I could ever approach.  Now that I'm a star, people come up to me and they are afraid to come up to me and say hello.  I know what they're feeling, because when I was young, I couldn't approach people either.  You know, when I was young and I want to have the autograph of the famous singer in Algeria, I was terrified.  That's why when someone comes to me for an autograph, I was say, "Come, come."  I don't want a wound people, because I've tasted that.

As I told you the music I grew up with in Oran is from Spain.  It’s Latino.  We had lots of Latin music, and it has always been my dream to find someone you could help me make music like that.  I also wanted to make music with Americans.  I have done work with Don Was, but I thought that was not enough for the United States.  I'm not really very well known in United States.  I thought it would be good to do something with a big personality, someone who is really respected the United States, someone who is universal.  Someone you could help me become known to a bigger public.  I asked for nothing.  I knew that to make this opening, to work with an artist of a different religion, someone who is not a Muslim someone but who has the goodwill, the smile, who comes to show himself, that he also suffers, that he also feels things, that he also has problems in his country, that he also has seen people die in his country, that he also has seen injustice.  I talk about my people in Algeria, because I grew up with these people.  I spent 26 years in my country, and those are 26 years of happiness.  After that, things changed in Algeria.  Things changed in the world.  Things have changed in ways that no one expected in their lives, like these terrible things that happened in New York.  Once again, I extend my condolences for the people who lost their lives in these events.  And also, I respect the people who have been killed in Algeria.  I sing for them.  I sing for Rachid, who honored me, because it was through him that I found the drum machine I spoke of earlier. 

I sing for all those people who have lost their lives—lost their lives for us, for me, for my children, the people of today.  I sing also for the people of America, and of the world who fought and died so that I could live in peace and Liberty in this world.  My freedom.  Excuse me for saying this, what is happening in Iraq, what is happening in Palestine, what is happening in the world, me, when I see that, people always ask me, "What do you say about that?"  I always say the same words, for the GIs, for the military, for the Iraqis, for everyone.  I am not a terrorist.  Nobody likes the terrorists, and nobody likes death.  Nobody on the earth like these people who do evil.  Nobody on the earth likes that.  Nobody.  It's not only me.  Everybody in the world does not like that.  So, what I always say when people ask me this, because I'm not a politician, I said, "The poor mothers.  The poor mothers who are crying.”  I will tell you this.  For me, the honor goes to the women who are crying, because they have lost a child.  That child has lost his life, and because of that, my children can live freely, peacefully on the earth.  That is what is beautiful.

I can't say, "I hate this country because it attacked this other country."  No.  I'm sorry.  Never.  Excuse me.  Because the entire world is watching, and nobody likes people who do evil.  This is why I want to make this album, today, that is called Ya Rayi, and to reinforce it with a new song I created with K. C. Porter and Santana.  The words of this song say, "Sing love.  Sing love to the people.  Right now.  Sing love to children.  Right now."  We sing for the children of today.  And we Sing love for the people of today.  Because I think people of today also have need of a little bit of love, and respect.  And out of respect, I also say hello to Quincy Jones who is now preparing “We Are the World 2,” which is called, "We Are the Future."  When you see all the big stars in that, wow!  These people don't need to do that.  They don't need to.  They make music for the children in Africa, my home, and Africa, in Tunisia, children involved in the drug trade in the arms trade.  It's worse than what's happening in Iraq.  We made a song, and we said, "We are the future.  It is we were passing the message of love."  And I'm very honored that Quincy Jones asked me to assist in this project, and Santana assisted in this project.

I think that today, the world has need for this, for people like me, like Quincy, like Stevie [Wonder], like Don Was, like K. C. Porter, like Santana, to sing love and pass a message of love, and beyond that, to evolve in life.  So for me on this album, to have K.C. Porter, and me with Santana is really something fantastic.  And I hope that this song comes through America's front door, and pass is a real message of love.  In Algeria, they have already heard on television that Khaled is making a song with Santana, and everyone is waiting impatiently.  For me, that is the evolution of music.  You have always make marriages.  You should never be closed.  This one is there, and you have to profit from the sunlight and profit from life.

BE:   There are some other marriages of styles on this album too.  To tell us about some of the others.

Khaled:   There is also the song “Ya Rayi (Oh, My)” which I made with Don Was.  What was beautiful was that for the first time, you know, with the process of getting visas, we didn't have time for all that, so I couldn't actually come to the United States.  But I made “Ya Rayi” with Don Was over the Internet.  How's that for the evolution of music?  We were making the evolution of music.  Don Was became free at a certain moment.  He called me up.  And we found a way to work together, by Internet.  It was as if we were together.  Nobody else had used this before.  K. C. Porter has just told me, "Khaled, I would really like it if when you go back to Paris or Luxembourg, I would try much like to stay in contact with you, my brother, my friend, because I have other projects, other music."  I asked, how are we going to do that?  He said, "Easy.  Internet."  Internet makes music without passports.  That is beautiful.  That's the shit!

BE:   That’s freedom.

Khaled:   Voila.  Thank you.  That is freedom.  And I hope I don't land in the water.  He might set me totally free, like a satellite circling the earth, free!  It reminds me of Star Wars.  [LAUGHS]  No, no way.  But that is what I wanted to explain.  It's that people advance.  The good God gave me life so that I could profit from life, not to die quickly.  I don't want to die quickly.  For me, why did God create human beings?  So that they could live.  God gave me life so that I could live and profit from life.  For me, profiting from life is singing, traveling, seeing friends, sharing.

BE:   So how is that expressed in these new songs?

Khaled:   Take “Mani Hani (I am not at peace when she is away).”  It's very melancholic, very sad.  And for the first time, I sing like a real crooner.  This is the first time I have done that.  I really wanted to return to the fifties, not the sixties, the fifties.  The time when rai music was song in Arab and French.  And why did I call Maurice El-Médioni?  It was to show that I am a Muslim, and he is a Jew of North Africa.  He is there also on “H’Mama,” along with the guitarist, M’Hammed Blaoui.  “H’Mama” is the dove of peace, la colombe.  Blaoui and Maurice El-Médioni had not seen each other in 40 years, since independence.  One had gone to France, and the other had stayed in Algeria.  As you can see in the DVD we made, I brought them together again in Paris.  For me, when I watch that, I cry.  One day, I told my wife that the pleasure of reuniting Maurice Médioni and M’Hammed Blaoui was better than selling 100,000 records.  This was just an idea that the good God gave me.  When they saw each other, Blaoui fell over.  I was afraid he was having a heart attack.  Afterwards, it was, “Oh, my friend.  Oh, my God!”  It was beautiful.  And do you know why I did that?  It was to show to these people who know nothing about life that Muslims and Jews can make music together.  They are brothers.

BE:   You have a history of doing that, don't you?  You worked with Jean-Jacques Goldman, for example.

Khaled:   Yes.  Yes.  People liked what we did.  But Jean-Jacques Goldman and Don Was are one thing.  Maurice El-Médioni and Blaoui is more of a statement.  [WHISTLES]  These are big people.  This reunion goes all the way back to the Second World War.  This was an idea, to reunite people, to bring a Christian. Philippe Eidel, who produced “Mani Hani” and “H’Mama,” Maurice El-Médioni and Blaoui, who are Jews from North Africa, an American, English people, Moroccan, Italian.  The image I wanted to show with this album is the image of a flower.  Americans, English, North African's, all these people came to aid a people, to liberate France [in World War II].  So today.  Me, with this music, I want to free the spirit of people.  The spirit.  Not war.  Open up the minds of people.  Make them stop.  Stop.  We see nothing but horrors.  You saw what happened in Russia recently, with those children.  The world has become crazy.  Crazy!  And especially when you do something against children.  That kills me.  People use children now.  It is like I said in this project with Quincy Jones.  He's looking far ahead.  He's looking at Africa and asking what is happening there, giving guns to children.  But everywhere now, and it isn't just religion.  There's always some pretext.  We have religious terrorism.  Now something else.  What now?  Children.  Ohhhh. 

I wanted to sing about this before we have another catastrophe.  This is why I chose to sing about children with Santana.  Sing love to the children.  Sing love to the children.  Because we have fear about the future.  Maybe it will be Muslim fundamentalists terrorism next time.  There will be another kidnapping of children, another problem.  We want to sing about this now.  Wake up!  Where is the world going?  Where is the world going?  We don't know.  But stop.  It's enough.  Stop.  We don't have the right to take children hostage.  We don't have the right take women hostage.  For me it is this man who make war.  They are the Warriors.  If they go after presidents, politicians—I don’t know.  They should go after the barracks, where people have guns.  Why come to civilian buildings, filled with innocent people who haven't done anything.  The poor.  They have no arms.  They can't defend themselves.  Why kill these innocence?

I look at what happened in Algeria.  Why kill innocents?  You want to change the government?  If you are capable, go to the government.  Show that you are a man.  If you have a dream of a new government, the defeat a president by showing that he is a bad precedent.  Okay.  This is the sort of thing I want to show with my albums.  I want to show people encountering, meeting, white, black, everyone.  We are all kif-kif, as we say in Arabic.  Kif-kif is “the same thing.”

BE:   Let's talk about some of these other news songs.  How about “Zine Zina”?  [Note: This song appears on the European edition of Ya Rayi, but not on the American one.]

Khaled:   Ah, “Zine Zina.”  You know what that means?  "The beauty of beauties."  All my songs talk about that.  They document nothing but love, and nothing but women.  But for the first time, on this song “Zine Zina,” I did it in the manner of the Antilles, working with Jacob Desvarieux [guitarist and producer for the trail-blazing Antillean zouk group, Kasav.]  This is the first time I've tried to make this marriage.  The thing is I'm always on tour.  But I've been to the Antillies.  I've been to Reunion.  I know this music, zouk.  Zouk Machine.  It's dance music, Creole dance music.  And I've said before, "Why can't we do a song like this?"  This is what I'm telling you.  Today, I'm expressing myself working with Don Was.  Maybe tomorrow, I will want to do something with Prince.  Just an example.  Or maybe I’ll want to make a rock ‘n’ roll song.  [SINGS RHYTHM] I could sing rai that way.  No problem.  It's not to integrate myself.  No way.  It is to give pleasure to those who like me.  I don't want to take anybody's place.  I want to share.  If somebody loves my music, then I want to say, "Okay, Khaled will sing your music too."  It is ping pong.  I give you something.  You give me something.  I give love to you.  You give love to me.  That's what I want to show.  It's not that I am going to become an American, or tomorrow I'm going to become French.  I am Algerian, and I will always stay Algerian. 

I love my country, and I defend my country when it has problems, even if I'm not a warrior, even if I did not want to do my military service.  I did not do that to betray my people.  They said to me, "You must be like Elvis Presley.  You must do your military service.”  And I said, "But why?  I don't want to.  I don't want to kill anybody.  It's not for me.  I can't express it.  It's not me."  And they said, "No way.”  They kept saying Elvis Presley.  And I said, "But I'm not Elvis Presley.  I am just little Khaled."  [LAUGHS] 

BE:   This was why you left Algeria, right?  And for a while, you could not return there.

Khaled:   That was the reason.  It had nothing to do with fundamentalism.

BE:   What years was this happening?

Khaled:   1986 I left the first time.  Then I came back, and I had problems.  They wanted to put me in jail.  That was in 1988.  After 88, there was someone who helped me.  I left and that was it.  If I returned, I would have to go and military.

BE:   And then used it away until when?

Khaled:   Until 2000.  But that is what may be stronger, because when I returned home, I met with a commandant, and he said, "Welcome.  Come, come.  You're going to see Algeria from the sky.  We will go and an airplane and you will see that the good God has done only beautiful things."  So I went in the cockpit.  But what I didn't like, and what made me stronger, was when I was in the cockpit looking out at my country.  Ahhh!  But when I got out, I felt badly.  I was afraid.  I got back to my hotel, and I saw poor people sleeping outside the gates.  There were security guards.  But I was afraid of the security guards or going to kill me.  I didn't understand what was happening in Algeria.  Afterwards I said, "My God.  This is my country.  This is a country where I always walked alone, free.  And now I returned to my country and I'm under threat."  I felt terrible.  It is my home and I feel bad.  I didn't want to stay.  I wanted to leave.  I looked at my watch to figure out how soon the morning would come so I could finish with the journalists and leave, return to Paris.

Afterwards, little by little, I got used to it.  But that was how it hit me at first.  My God.  Freedom… [WHISTLES]  It costs too much.  It costs too much, a life of freedom.  Truly, it costs a lot.  But for me, as an artist, that gave me a chance to really think, and to become wiser, and to make music that would really honor people, and to write well.  This is the where I can show myself, because I don't talk much on stage.  I sing.  I don't talk.  I don't express myself.  Also I'm afraid.  With journalists, I don't talk much.  I'm afraid I'm going to say something that won't sound good, or that people will not understand what I'm saying.  When people don't understand your words, they deform them.  They distort the subject.  That's what I'm afraid of.  Even when I talk with you here, now, about music and everything, I have a certain fear that a Muslim from somewhere, could be anywhere, will see what I have said and think, "Ah!  What is this guy saying?”  You understand?

BE:   You are always taking that risk.

Khaled:   Always.  Always.  Even if we talk about love.  Even if we talk about life, we risk our lives.  It's not obvious what I'm saying.  It's not normal.  For me, it is not normal.  I will get into politics with a big journalist from Algeria, a great man who has spoken a lot.  He said, with all the honors he had, this great man, he said in Algeria in the past, when we were having the problems with terrorism, he said, "In Algeria, if I speak, they will kill me.  If I don't speak, they will kill me.  So what can I do?  I must speak."  So they killed him.  He’s dead.  Yes.  But this was a person who spoke.  He said the truth.  He risked his life.  There were many like that.  Many journalists were killed in Algeria.  Many.  They become statistics.  Nobody talks about them.  Many children were killed there.  In atrocities.  And I ask why?  But I take that political lesson.  You have to speak.  But you have to know how to speak also.  You can't just say anything.  You can't add to things.

BE:   If you're going to take that risk, you have to be careful.

Khaled:   I will tell you honestly.  Back home, they send you letters.  They say things like, "You….Pffft.  Tomorrow, you're dead.  You have your warning."  Sometimes people get a letter with a piece of white cloth, and some soap.  Because when a Muslim dies, they wash you and wrapped you and white cloth, to prepare you to be buried.  So the white cloth and the soap is a way of saying, "Prepare yourself."  Is a real menace.  And people are really stressed out.  Terrorized.  So they become quiet.  "Okay, I won't say anything.  I won't do anything.  Because no one will defend me." 

BE:   Even though you sing about love, not politics, but still, you are engaged.

Khaled:   Yes.  But when I honor this time in Algeria, I take off my hat, and offer my reverence, to the man, and especially the women of Algeria, because Algerian women played a big role when we had problems there.  They were visible, they were killed, but they said, "No way, we will not give the key to the fascists.  We will not do it."  And the real men would not support a civil war.  Because the tactic of the fascists was to go into the house and violate a man's wife in front of him and their children, expressly with the idea of inspiring a civil war.  Or they would kill the mother and father in front of the children.  They wanted to create hate.  But they did not succeed.  Thank you, God.

Algeria now.  [SIGHS WITH RELIEF]  We are in the process of building our country.  We are on the road to peace.  We on the road to reconciliation.  And we are on the road to saying, "That's enough.  They killed us, but it's okay.  We pardon them."  Bouteflika has pardoned people.  He's in the process of calling people down from the mountains, so that they will return.  But the return is what?  It's for the people who did not kill, who were recruited, but who did not kill.  They are pardoned.  And they can come home.

BE:   And for those who did kill?

Khaled:   They must be judged.  It's normal.  But not killed.  Judged.  That's wise.  Pardons exist in the world.  God created pardon.  We can't put everyone in prison. It is some of our brains that need to be put in prison, or killed. 

BE:   You have to think about the future.

Khaled:   Thank you.  That's a move forward.  Even a normal life, even with hooligans, the ones who take hostages, wives and children.  “Open the bank for me, or I will kill your family.”  The police won't condemn the person who opens the bank under those circumstances.  The poor guy was defending his family.  It's not a crime.  That's why you have pardons.  You have to understand life.

BE:   Let's talk about the song "Lemen.”

Khaled:   “Lemen.”  That means confidence, trust.  I wanted to do this song to talk about what goes on in life.  I say that in this world, I can't trust to much, because there's too much gossip, evil gossip.  The world has changed.  This is why I know longer have confidence in words.  And I say, the same time, the talk about words of love.  It's all is a metaphor.  I talk about life.  Life is the woman.  Because for us, the wife, the woman, is feminine.  And life is feminine also.  We talk a lot about our mothers and wives, because our mothers and wives give life.  They give life to children.  That's why I say in this world I no longer have trust because it's too much evil blah-blah.  Then I said to the woman, "Look what is before you.  Stop lying.  Look what is before you.  Love your future.  Because in this life, when we die, we don't take anything with us.  We don't take money.  We don't take jewelry.  We take nothing."  That's true.  When we die, we take nothing.  [LAUGHS]

When you die, when you leave, you don't take your clothing with you.  You leave the way you came.  Natural.  What counts is the soul.  This is just the carcass.  The soul?  We don't know where it goes.  We don't know.  That's what I talk about in this song.  The soul, life.  We leave with nothing.  We must profit from life.  You should not be influenced by others.  For example, their people who might come to me and said, "Khaled, come here.  Kill in the name of God, and Paradise awaits you."  I could respond by asking this person whether he has seen Paradise.  It he has seen Paradise, if he has gone there and come back, then I can do that.

BE:   Pretty hard to have confidence in that.

Khaled:   Voila.  But I don't want to wound people.  I don't want to say strong words.  I like to pass these messages softly.  It's not good to say, "I don't like this.  I don't like that."  I watched the way things were when you had an election here in United States, people for and against.  Even in France.  For and against.  And afterwards, when the election is over, and the person you are against has won, you become for them.  [CLAPS]  You are a liar.  [LAUGHS].  You can say what you don't like, but we live in a democratic world, a free world.  You can say, “I don't like this.  I don't like you.”  But I don't eliminate you.  No.  I have to respect you.

BE:   What about “Ya Galbi?”

Khaled:   That means "My Heart."  And this is my favorite song, because this is a love song.  It's beautiful because this is a man who speaks from his heart, but his heart betrays him.  Because human beings can either speak from the brain or from the heart.  They are two different things: this and that.  In the song, I say, "Oh, my heart.  Stop with the sweetness and bitterness, the whiskey and the wine.”  That is to say there is the good and bad, and they are both bad.  But this is all about love.  This has nothing to do with politics.  “Stop, my heart.  You are in love with the woman who doesn't love you.”  He explains that his heart has betrayed him, and he cries about that.  He says, "Oh, my heart, you always land me in shit.”  [LAUGHS]  “You have left the one who loves you, and gone off with an enemy."  Afterwards he says, "Oh, my heart.  Stop, because once again, you have been betrayed by a woman, and you leave for another one, and it is always the same thing.  But this other one is always beside you, and she loves you truly.  There are always accidents like this.  The one who loves you truly is there telling you, "Wake up.  I am the one who loves you."  But your heart goes after this other one.  That's the way life is.  And that's why I say, "Oh, my heart.” 

BE:   The heart is the master.

Khaled:   It is the master.

BE:   What about “El-H’Mam?”

Khaled:   “El-H’Mam” is what we call shaabi, Algerian shaabi.  It has nothing to do with rai.  It is close to the malouf of Morocco.  Malouf comes from Andalusian music, which comes from Syria way back, and is mixed with music from Turkey.  There is mandolin.  It is popular music.  We call it shaabi.  This is the music that was big before rai overshadowed it.

BE:   What about the words?

Khaled:   “El-H’Mam” is a woodpigeon.  Pigeon is feminine in Arabic.  But the bad pigeon is the woodpigeon.  Because usually, the pigeon is feminine, but the bad one is not called a pigeon.  It is called ramier (woodpigeon).  The man who wrote this song a long time ago is called El Hadj Mohamed el Anka, and he is dead.  He was a big personality, and he lived to be old.  He created a school of music, shaabi music, in Algeria, ever since for colonized, long, long ago.  He wrote this song for his son.  He says, "The woodpigeon you raised has left.”  Because when his son grew up, he wanted him to stay with his father.  But his son had other things to do, and he left.  He fell in love with a woman.  But the father wanted that his son would stay with him.  So that's what the song says, “The woodpigeon you raised has gone away."   In Algeria, and Arabic poetry, we always talked about a nice animal, a domestic animal. 

BE:   The sort of animal that goes away and returns to the house. 

Khaled:   Yes.  That returns home.  Voila.  There is a metaphor there.  Because you can't say, “My son has left me.”  That doesn't work.  No.  You have to find words that are strong.  And the pigeon is good because there are people who raise pigeons in Algeria.  And also, the woodpigeon, like the dove, prays.  [HE MAKES THE COOING SOUND.]  They pray, the way we Muslims do.  And the dove, we cannot kill it.  We cannot eat it.  Impossible.  It is a bird that we cannot eat or kill.  There are people who eat pigeons, not me.  But the woodpigeon and the dove—never.  They pray, just like Muslims.  It's an animal of prestige.  The dove for us is like the cow in India.  We can't touch it.  And the cat also.  Cats also pray.  You know, Muslims cannot pray in front of animals.  It's considered dirty.  Especially dogs.  For us Muslims, dogs are dirty.  But the cat, no.  A cat cleans itself like a person before praying.  Before we pray, we do like the cat, we clean ourselves.  The cat has a history too.  Because our prophet Mohammed, when he wanted to pray, he had a cat in his burnoose, a female cat.  He is to pray with the cat beside him, giving birth to its kittens.  This is why we can pray in front of the cat.  Because the cat is proper.  It cleans itself.  But the dog.  No.  So we often sing about these domestic animals, the ones that God told us not to touch.

BE:   Let’s talk about “Yema Yema.” 

Khaled:   That is “Mother.”  This is a song for mothers.  This song is more Spanish, like madre, madre.  But I read did it as rai, “Yema Yema.”  I sing this song, but I am a hypocrite.  I sing that when a boy marries, his mother becomes jealous.  Yes.  She becomes jealous of the wife.  She doesn't say so.  She keeps that in her head, of course.  So I say, "Mother, don't say that I have forgotten you.  You are always in my eyes.  I love you always.  You are my life.  You gave me my life.  You are my love.  But I am in love with another in a different way.  Love of my wife is different than the love of my mother.”  I sleep with my wife.  I do not sleep with my mother.  But I love her.  So I sing love to my mother in the hope that she will love my wife.  [LAUGHS]  Always looking for the balance.

BE:  What about “Ensa El Hem?”

Khaled:   That is a song that was written in 1954.  “Ensa El-Hem” means “forget about misery."  Forget miseries.  Forget problems.  That song was written during the time when we were colonized, but the words work perfectly well in the in the 2000s.  Poets are visionaries for me.  It's as if you listened to an American song written in the 1950s, and you listened to it now to the words and you say, "That's my generation."  This song says, "Forget the problems that are in my heart.  You must not keep secrets.  You must talk.  You must not be afraid.  You must talk about things.  In this life, you must talk about things you do not want to happen."

BE:  And “Hagda?” 

Khaled:   “Hagda.”  “You are like that.”  This is a love song.  It says, "You are like that.  And you will stay like that.  You cannot change, but unhappily, I love you as you are.”  [LAUGHS]  The guy loves his woman despite her faults.  She shouts all the time.  "Where were you?  What were you doing?  Were you going now?"  She's jealous all the time.  And he says, "You are like that.  You're not going to change.  You shout.  You are like that.  But unhappily, I love you anyway."

BE:  And “El Ghira?”

Khaled:   Jealousy.  That is politics.  Well, not really politics, but it is for my country.  But when some listen to the words they will think it is for a woman.  But I talk about a country, my country.  Their people who are jealous, for example in our country we have problems.  There a lot of people who saved themselves by leaving Algeria and going to France.  They have nothing to do with terrorism and all that.  They play the game in order to get visas, and then they start to criticize the country, their country.  They start to say whatever it takes.  They criticize the president.  They say Islam is good, but Algeria has gone rotten.  They lie.  They say things that are not true.  So I say, "When you are jealous of a woman, you talk about her.”  To say it in stronger words, the wolf, when it wants to eat a bunch of grapes, and it can't, what does it say?  It says that the grapes are bitter and that it doesn't want them.  Because it can't eat them, it says they are not good.  So, because it is too hard for him, and he can't create a good situation for himself in Algeria, and he is always in poverty, or he becomes a pickpocket, he says this country is not good.  Because he can feel the way he wants to, he criticizes. 

It is like if we see a beautiful lady, a bomb, and she walked past, and you say, "Oh, she is so beautiful.”  I say, "That one?  I went out with her.  She is not beautiful.  She doesn't know how to make love.”  And in fact, I don't even know her.  I say that in the song.  [LAUGHS]  Why does he say she is not beautiful?  Because she is better than him.  So I play with the words.  You see?  Voila.  Songs are always like that.

BE:  The songs have different levels of meaning. 

Khaled:   And if you search, and think very hard, you will understand.  Why do people like me?  Because in all my songs, people can think the way they want.  This is true.  Take a song like “Didi.”  Why was the song number one?  People didn't even understand the language.  They didn't understand.  But you know why it was so successful?  Do you know what that means, “Didi?”  [For the French,] it’s “Grandmother.”  They thought I was singing about a grandmother, and everybody loves their Grandmother.  In Egypt, “Didi” is when you make funny faces at a baby.  So that touched the Egyptians.  “Di zine.”  “Take the beauty.”  Don't let it get away.  That's what I'm singing and that song.  Take the beauty.  You must take advantage.  For example, if you going to a nightclub, and you see a beautiful woman.  You say, “Hah!”  And in the end, you leave alone.  That's what happens.  Because your eyes and your heart have betrayed you.  They take in everything, and afterwards, you leave with nothing.  In “Didi,” I say, "When you see something you want, take it.  You must profit from the opportunity." 

BE:  We’re not here forever, eh? 

Khaled:   Voila.  And that touched people.  But everybody hears things the way they want in their language.  Like, for example, in Marseilles, and France, people say, “Dede.  Hey, Dede.”  Dede is the guy with the little bar with the baguettes of bread, and the wine.  That’s Dede.  You see? 

BE:  The maryule, again.  [The bon vivant Khaled spoke of earlier in the interview.]

Khaled:   The maryule.  That's why, when I write songs, I look for words that are international, that can express something, and that people can sing easily.  I don't look for things that are difficult in Arabic.  The things that I sing are usually simple for you, for the Egyptian Arabs, for the French.  Sometimes the Arabs laugh at me because we don't have the same dialect.  "What are you talking about?  We don't understand you.”  But with my music, it's marvelous.  And that is what is beautiful.  With my music, I make my language understood.  That's beautiful.  It's better than school.  I teach my language everywhere.  I didn't learn English in school because they didn't teach it.  My English came through traveling.  I listen to people.  You can learn words from songs.  It's better than school.  When I see people who sing Michael Jackson, or Stevie wonder, I asked them, "What are you singing?  Explain it to me."  And then there's the accent.  The young people, the kids, sing without understanding the words.  And when I sing something in English you go "Ah.  That's English.  Explain it to me."  But they can't.  They don't understand.  They just sing what they listen to do. 

BE:  Khaled, my last tape is ending.  Thank you.  This has been fantastic. 

Click here to read Part 1 or Part 2 of this interview.

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