A radio host at the age of fifteen, and a popular singer in Algeria where he blended Arabo-Andalusian or chââbi styles with the fashions of the day, Lili Boniche was the last representative of a rich Judeo-Arabo-Andalusian tradition. After suspending his career in the nineteen-fifties to devote himself to business, Lili Boniche was rediscovered in 1998 with the album Alger, Alger, produced by Bill Laswell, on which he recorded his greatest hits. Enjoying a veritable cult following among Algerian repatriates and the Sephardic community, Lili Boniche awakens nostalgia for a period of fraternity forever lost. Lili Live and Il N'y A Qu'un Seul Dieu, Live à l'Olympia in 1999 bear witness to the fervor that surrounds her. Lili boniche died in Paris on March 6, 2008 at the age of eighty-seven. A role model for Enrico Macias, Lili boniche passed definitively into posterity with Anthologie in December 2012.
