September 15 (Sat), 9 pm—MC Rai, Lady Sha and Rupa & the April Fishes at Temple Bar

Souk77 Productions and the Levantine Center present MC Rai and Rupa and the April Fishes at the Temple Bar in Santa Monica.

DJ Lady Shah will open the night followed by the incredible San Francisco group Rupa and the April Fishes at 10:30. MC Rai will take the stage at midnight.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. Advance tickets can be bought by calling the Levantine box office, 310.657.5511 or going online here:

Rupa & the April Fishes creates fresh music that defies the notion of genre—it is a whimsical magic carpet ride through time and place, mixing sounds from the Far East, Europe, Latin America and the US. They give an unforgettable multilingual performance—with songs in French, Spanish, English, Hindi and Roma that range from raucous to romantic.

Rupa (songwriting, guitar, vocals) was born in California and raised in the Bay Area, with considerable childhood time spent in her ancestral Northern India and in France during elementary school. Growing up between these places has given her the sense that nowhere and everywhere made up what was known as "home," that nationality is a concept.

DJ Lady Sha aka Shaden has quickly established a presence in LA since recently returning to her childhood home for the first time in 4 years. Turntablist, vocalist, guitarist, pianist, and spoken word artist, Shaden redefines the meaning of being a multifaceted woman in the 21st century. In her second year at the University of California, Berkeley, Shaden bought her first pair of turntables. Since then, she has been gracing stages internationally spinning hip hop, reggae, soul, and world sounds, in addition to performing poetry in movement and vocals backed by the rhythm of acoustic guitar. In 2004, Shaden completed a 6 months DJ tour of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia, and Mozambique, making her the first female DJ to spin live on South African airwaves. In the next year, she will be touring Jamaica, Europe, Brazil, and the states. After graduating from Cal, Shaden moved her home base from the bay to LA. Currently, you can catch her spinning throughout the nightlife of Los Angeles and presenting musical and artistic events through Lioness Entertainment (DJ Lady Sha & Aneesah Williams).

MC RAI was born in the southern Tunisian city of Gabes. As a youth, he was immersed in the folk music traditions of Chaabi, or Mizoued as it is known in Tunisia. He began performing live on the local radio station at the age of 8. In 1995, he turned his attention from Chaabi to Rai music, and realized that he could develop a style of Rai distinct from that of Algeria and infuse it with the traits of his native Tunisian music. MC Rai has garnered considerable attention in Tunisia as a result of successful, regular performances on radio and television. He is considered a contemporary of a new generation of Rai singers, including Faudel, Sawt el Atlas, and Abdu.

While many of his contemporaries moved to France to attract a European audience, MC Rai chose instead to try his fortunes in San Francisco, to explore the possibility of bringing Rai music to the United States, later moving to Los Angeles. He has performed with well-known rai musician Khaled, Cheb I Sabbah, and shared the stage with artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Joan Baez and Michael Franti. Raivolution is the title of his debut album—the name amply describes MC Rai's intentions, for Rai in Arabic means opinion, as well as being a form of North African music. MC Rai decided that his first album should be a complete modernization of the Rai musical form, combining cutting-edge production, rock guitar, hip hop beats and drum and bass. And underlying everything is his Rai style vocals and traditional Middle Eastern/North African melodic and rhythmic form. MC Rai worked with producer Jef Stott in San Francisco and producer/composer Omar Fadel in Los Angeles