***1/2 Cheb Mami

MELI MELI

(Mondo Melodia)

Algeria's Cheb Mami has emerged as the reigning master of pop rai. Even if he can never match the burly, gravitational forcefulness of Khaled, the style's best-known singer, Mami shows with this album that he has the most varied stylistic vocabulary on the contemporary scene. His arrangements feature his lithe voice as it flutters and soars, never losing focus and clarity. And his forays into hip-hop, reggae, new flamenco, and even Afro-Celtic music are not gratuitous.

In "Parisien du Nord" he uses dark melodies and a hip-hop feel to address his core audience, young second-generation North Africans living in France. Rai's overriding theme -- the pain of "unfortunate love" -- is prevalent here. But in "Bledi" ("My Country") Mami adapts a Mexican folk melody and propulsive flamenco rhythms to comment tenderly on the ravaging effects of civil war in his homeland. Rai's signature sound is a kind of Arabic world funk, and the title track is as catchy an example of that as you'll find. But it's the surprises -- like Mami mixing it up with a Scottish bagpipe on "Azwaw 2" -- that make this release so memorable.

-- Banning Eyre