Back in 2001, some bright spark had the idea of getting some rai and reggae artists together to collaborate. They managed to get some pretty big names involved - the likes of Khaled, Gregory Isaacs and Sly & Robbie - and the upshot was an album called "Big Men".
Unfortunately the results are not as entertaining as they would think they could have been. This could be because - from what I can gather from the sleeve notes - the Algerians did their bits in Paris then sent them over to Kingston for the Jamaicans to add to (and vice versa). Still, it has its moments.
"Life" - Larbi Dida & U Roy
"A Love I Can Feel" - Tarik & Chevelle Franklin
As far as I know the experiment wasn't repeated, so nobody had to work out what name to give to an exciting new "genre". Rai-Reggae? Reggae-Rai? Rai-ggae? I have no idea what to call it, but I do know that its not reggae like it used to be.
I will beat CharityChic to this: that Paul Nicholas tune is not his best, certainly not as good as Grandma's Party
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