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" The Arabic music I listen to is extremely edgy. Ironic, sarcastic, sensual, erotic. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Sarcastic
Music
Listen
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" When I started, I didn't know how to sing in Arabic - it's a very complex and sophisticated music full of codes and modes and quarter-tones. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Started
How
Music
" It's complicated for my music to be accepted, even in Lebanon and the Arabic world - I sing in Arabic, but there's no lute, no classical instruments. Maybe with the Internet opening things up, things will change. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Music
Opening
Internet
" There should be no borders, race, colours, or ethnical considerations when it comes to music and creativity. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Music
Race
Borders
" I went from the most underground band in the world to signing with Madonna's producer and a record label that is extremely mainstream - it was interesting. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Interesting
Most
Producer
" I sing in Arabic as a statement. It's art, and it's a challenge. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Challenge
Sing
Statement
" When it comes to the lyrics, I write about my own perception of things and use characters for that. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Things
Own
Perception
" I don't think there is only one Arab culture or a pure Arabness. We are very multiple, especially our generation, which is very multilayered. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Culture
Generation
Only
" I had an Arabic background. but I lived a very scattered childhood. I didn't belong to any one culture, which meant I didn't have musical geographies in my head. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Childhood
Culture
Lived
" My dad was a brilliant civil engineer. My parents later divorced, but we lived in Abu Dhabi, Greece, Kuwait. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Later
Parents
Brilliant
" The Arabic world was very interesting in the 1920s to '60s: there was something booming culturally, and I found my culture very desirable when I listened to these songs. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Very
Interesting
Culture
" Maybe I was blessed that my main drive was purely selfish. I needed to make something, make my life better, wider, have poetry in my life, have something that gives me hope on an everyday basis. That was my main drive all along, really. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Blessed
Hope
Poetry
" When I go to Beirut, I don't drive. It's traumatizing to drive there. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Go
Drive
Beirut
" I sing 'Beirut' for what the city is for me, but I am also singing as an exile. "
Yasmine Hamdan
I Am
Singing
Sing
" My father is an engineer, and my mother raised the three children. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Mother
Three
Children
" When I read the Koran or hear it read, the images and the poetry, the sound of the language is very inspiring. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Language
Poetry
Sound
" Egyptians are quite incredible people. They have everything: the culture, the music, the scenes. So much of Arab music and art started there. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Everything
People
Culture
" When I started doing music, it was out of despair and boredom. I got passionate about it, and I felt that it allowed me to become somebody: an artist who explores her different identities. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Her
Doing
Boredom
" I'm inspired by many artists whose language I don't understand. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Whose
Inspired
Language
" I had the urge to face my own limitation, and I needed to be bigger. I needed to be more professional and be in a more competitive environment because I wanted to grow as an artist. That's why I went to Europe. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Professional
Artist
Environment
" Change means resistance, and resistance means transformation and igniting energies. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Transformation
Change
Resistance
" I've always fought any form of censorship. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Fought
Form
Censorship
" If you have a drummer who alternates between fast and slow drumming, it can negatively affect the music. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Fast
You
Slow
" I don't believe that there is a separation between art and political consciousness. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Believe
Separation
Political
" I set the bar very high. I'm very tough on myself. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Myself
Bar
Very
" Imagine a singer with the virtuosity of Joan Sutherland or Ella Fitzgerald, the public persona of Eleanor Roosevelt, and the audience of Elvis, and you have Umm Kulthum. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Singer
You
Public
" I am interested in exploring encounters where worlds meet and not where they separate. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Meet
Interested
Exploring
" I don't relate to what is seen as 'Arab culture.' I relate to what I explore myself, what is around me. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Culture
Explore
Me
" 'Al Jamilat' is not just feminist. It's an album with songs that feature women: women who are in love, rebellious women, political activists, women who are more submissive, women who are in charge. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Women
More
Just
" I wanted to pursue my own thing - I had desires, ideas I wanted to accomplish, and I needed to be on my own for that. "
Yasmine Hamdan
My Own
Pursue
Own
" The Arab world is mediatised in a way that gives too much space to these people - puritans, extremists, whatever you want to call them. There are a lot more people like me in the Middle East than you might think. "
Yasmine Hamdan
Space
Me
World