Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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

Related Quotes:

" I've always had a sense that I am doing something very important, something vital. "

" Egyptians are quite incredible people. They have everything: the culture, the music, the scenes. So much of Arab music and art started there. "

" When I read the Koran or hear it read, the images and the poetry, the sound of the language is very inspiring. "

" When I go to Beirut, I don't drive. It's traumatizing to drive there. "

Yasmine Hamdan

Drive

Beirut

" As an artist, you need to be true to yourself and free and not put yourself in a box that contradicts with what you feel is needed for a song. "

" I don't believe that there is a separation between art and political consciousness. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" '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

Just

" When the public doesn't understand me, it's a battle. So when I choose words, I choose them for their musicality, rhythm, and sense, and I choose the right dialect to express that. "

Yasmine Hamdan

Choose

Words

" World music can be sometimes like the lumber room in which all the non-English singers are dumped. When you are singing in Arabic, no matter what your style of music or artistic proposition is, you are faced with some of that reality. "

" 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. "

" My dad was a brilliant civil engineer. My parents later divorced, but we lived in Abu Dhabi, Greece, Kuwait. "

" I'm Muslim but not really. My family did not care. And I always managed to skip religion classes when I was living in the Gulf, even when they were obligatory. "

" Faith is a very intimate process that involves being sincere and truthful to a spiritual presence. "

" There are many positive values that come with a Muslim upbringing. But when religion becomes about rules and hierarchies, when it starts to feel like a prison, I'm not interested. "

" Singing is a very sensual activity! You engage in it with all your senses and your heart. "

" Women are a minority the same way gay people are. "

" I'm bored, normally, when I travel. "

" Every time I go to Beirut, I see people and the quality of life going slowly from bad to worse, and from worse to even worse. "

" I was raised by strong women, and the role models I had in music and cinema were strong, too - liberated and provocative. "

" My father is an engineer, and my mother raised the three children. "

" 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. "

" All of the Arabic women I grew up listening to or watching had a very strong character. "

Yasmine Hamdan

Character

Women

" I sing in Arabic as a statement. It's art, and it's a challenge. "

" Back in Kuwait, I had started listening to a lot of English language music: western music, I would say - Kate Bush and Radiohead - and I loved Chet Baker, Etna James, a lot of singers and a lot of bands. "

" It's interesting to be at once an insider and outsider. It's a way of learning how to find your way freely without the need of conforming or belonging. "

" I think our societies - to certain extent, of course, and to different degrees, but almost with no exception - have always been struggling to come to terms with archaic traditions. "

" I've always fought any form of censorship. "

" 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. "