The small glass door at no. 441 53rd Street, West Manhattan, doesn't look like much from the outside. But ring the bell, climb the stairs, make your way past the receptionist and you find yourself in Avatar, one of the most legendary recording studios in New York! It's here, in this very building, that some of the greatest international music stars – we're talking Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna, Duran Duran and John Lennon (back in the days when Avatar was called the Power Station) – came to record their albums.
But on this cold winter's day in New York it's the turn of Cheb Mami, the world's leading Raï star, to push back the famous glass door. Mami's here to work on his new album, Dellali, with another great music legend, Nile Rodgers, co-founder of iconic disco outfit Chic and the man behind the international chart-topping single le Freak C'est Chic.

Rodgers, who these days wears his hair in neatly-tressed shoulder-length dreadlocks, has produced albums for some of the most famous pop stars on the planet. But with Mami, the legendary prodcuer found himself facing a new challenge, supervising the subtle mix of Raï (a hybrid music born in the west of Algeria, sung by young cheb rebels backed by frenetic guitars and basic synthesizer chords. Rodgers was responsible for producing nine tracks on Dellali (the other four being left in the capable hands of hot new Asian vibe sensation Nitin Sawhney). That, for the superstitious amongst you, makes thirteen tracks in all. Thirteen like the protective hand of Fatma! Rodgers crosses his fingers and opens the interview with a broad grin.

RFI: Had you heard of Cheb Mami before you actually started working with him?
Nile Rodgers: The first people who mentioned his name to me were a group of friends I work with a lot who live over in the U.K. There's an extensive Arab community in the U.K. – that's how my friends got to hear the music in the first place. Anyway, these friends had a great deal of admiration and respect for Mami's music. And, then of course, I discovered Mami duetting with Sting on Desert Rose.

What was it about Cheb Mami and his music that attracted your attention and got you interested in the idea of working with him?
When my friends started talking to me about Mami I tracked down his first four albums. Then as I became interested in Raï, I started reading up on the subject, finding out more about the tradition and how it came about in the first place. And I must say, as a musician myself, I found the whole story really fascinating. Besides, I've always loved anything that's new and different, anything that smacks of being a bit revolutionary or out of the ordinary. That sort of thing always gets me excited and makes me want to get involved.

What was it like for you, a funk and r'n'b man, working with a Raï singer like Mami?
Well, one thing I came to understand about Raï music is that you can take a little bit of anything you want - reggae, funk, Calypso, whatever, even a bit of blues and jazz maybe – and mix them in with Oriental influences, and Mediterranean influences in particular. It's great, you can draw inspiration from all these different styles from the four corners of the world and mix them up together and create whatever you want. Because there are absolutely no rules about what you can and can't do. It's like jazz really, you can mix in whatever you think sounds good, whatever's good for the ear, the soul, for Raï – anything goes!

Do you think there's an opening in the American market for Raï?
You know, the fundamental thing about music in the States is it has to have groove and feeling. I listen to a lot of records and what counts before anything else is the music. If you get hooked on the music, then you start listening to the words. As far as Cheb Mami's concerned, he's got natural funk and groove. From the very first day we started recording together we really tried to sit down and work out how you could mix funk and Raï together. And the fusion between the two was just magic – we found funk and RaÏ fitted together perfectly right from the first track!

Do you have any kind of trick or secret method when it comes to working on something completely new to you?
Well, I think what was exciting about working with Cheb Mami was the sort of approach I took to his music. Basically, I got together a bunch of musicians that I really like in the studio and we started jamming around, playing as if we were working under live concert conditions. And Mami got up in front of the mike and started adding his vocals over the top. We recorded the whole thing here right in this room, with drums there, piano over there and guitar here. We got really into it and by the end we were all playing together with this feeling that we were all moving in the same direction. There was this great spirit of collaboration and complicity. In fact, the recording sessions really took me back to when we recorded the debut album with Chic right here in the same room in this studio 23 years ago. I ended up doing exactly the same thing with Mami as we did back then and I think we ended up with exactly the same atmosphere in the studio and on the album.

Were you familiar with African music before you came to work on this album?
Yes, absolutely, because when I was growing up in New York, the city was full of African students. And while I was at university I played with a lot of different African groups. Come to think of it, I played with a lot of Arab groups too. That's New York for you – you get a bit of everything over here!

Dellali (Virgin France)

Photo on the homepage:Bernard Benant / Virgin