This is a draft article. It is a work in progress open to editing by anyone. Please ensure core content policies are met before publishing it as a live Wikipedia article. Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Easy tools: Citation bot (help) | Advanced: Fix bare URLs · Article logs · Draft logs. Last edited by Citation bot (talk | contribs) 20 hours ago. (Update) Finished drafting? Submit for review

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (April 2026) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must follow the LLM translation guideline, revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Exact name of the French article]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated page|fr|Exact name of French article}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. The topic of this draft may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for music. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. Notability should be established before publishing this draft or submitting it via the articles for creation process. Find sources: "Cheb Akil" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2026) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Akil Abdelkader (Arabic: عقيل عبد القادر, 27 June 1974 – 14 June 2013),^[1] known as Cheb Akil, later Akil (Arabic: عقيل) was a raï singer from Khemis Miliana, Algeria, and died in Tangier, Morocco, as a result of a car accident.^[2] To this day, Akil is considered one of Raï's leading artists.^[3]

Akil was born on June 27, 1974, in Khemis Miliana, Algeria. He spent much of his early life in poverty. He was noticed at a young age by Abdelkader Cassidy, who helped launch many raï artists throughout the 1980s and 90s.^[4] Cassidy gave him his first opportunity by producing an entire album of cover songs.

Akil gained recognition for his warm, nuanced voice and his strong command of the synthesizer. He released his first album at the age of 13, performing covers of songs by Cheb Khaled, Cheb Mami, and Cheb Hasni.^[1] In 1989, Cheb Akil stood out with the track Ne me quitte pas Omri, which was later covered by Cheb Bilal, who also ranked Akil among his favourite singers.^[4] His song Tahasdou oula T'ghirou sold over 100,000 copies and helped propel him to widespread fame.^[4] Known for his discipline and rigor in his musical work, Akil addressed various contemporary youth issues through his lyrics. Notable songs include Mektoubna, Tahya Bladi, Ma Tansak, and Ma Confiance. In 2010, on the occasion of the qualification of the Algerian national football team for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, he released the song Gladiator in collaboration with the rapper Sinik.^[5]

Cheb Akil died following a serious road accident. He succumbed to his injuries during the night of June 13, 2013, in Tangier, where he had been scheduled to perform that same evening at the Millenium venue. His wife, who was pregnant at the time and present in the car, survived the accident without injury. Following his death, Mohammed VI expressed his condolences to the family, describing the loss as "cruel." He stated that Cheb Akil was a talented artist who had won over a wide audience of raï fans in both Algeria and Morocco, which he described as his second country. His passing also prompted a response from the Algerian Ministry of Culture.^[4][2]

• Dosser Class (2002)
• Maktoub (2002)
• Rana Ga3 Malad Montal (2003)
• Hay Ouidi (2003)
• À Ton Avis (2005)
• Various works with Red Son (2006)
• Raï'n'B (2007)
• Kabtek Wilaytik (2007)
• Dar Mekria (2007)
• Enti Hia (2008)
• DJ Kayz (2008)
• Raï'n'B (2008)
• Salem (2009)
• Sahara (2009)
• Tah Niveau (2010)
• Live au Triangl (2010)
• Live (2011)
• Wach Tesswa (2011)
• Laachk Lmamno3 (2012)
• Jak El Mersoul (2013)

• Cheb Akil at discogs.com