Cheikha Rimitti (born Saadia El Ghizania, 8 May 1923 ? 15 May 2006) was an Algerian ra? female singer. Cheikha Rimitti was born in Tessala, a small village in western Algeria in 1923. She is from the major Berber tribe Beni Ouragh. She had been orphaned as a child due to violent French occupation and began to live rough, earning a few francs working in the fields and doing other manual jobs. At age 15, she joined a troupe of traditional Algerian musicians and learnt to sing and dance. In 1943 she moved to the rural town of Relizane and began writing her own songs. Her songs described the tough life endured by the Algerian poor, focusing on everyday struggle of living, pleasures of sex, love, alcohol and friendship and the realities of war. Traditionally, songs of lust had been sung privately by Algerian women at rural wedding celebrations but were considered crude and unfit to be heard in polite society. Rimitti was one of the first to sing them in public and did so in the earthy language of the street, using a rich blend of slang and patois. She eventually composed more than 200 songs but remained illiterate all her life.
