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" 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. "

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" Without freedom and without humor, our cultures can't have a healthy evolution. "

" I sing 'Beirut' for what the city is for me, but I am also singing as an exile. "

" I set the bar very high. I'm very tough on myself. "

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

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

" I studied psychology at university. "

" I follow my desires, and I'm prepared to take the consequences. "

" When it comes to the lyrics, I write about my own perception of things and use characters for that. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My family played a part in bringing communism to Lebanon. "

" A lot of Arabic composers such as Mohammed Abdel Wahab mixed sounds and instruments from all over the world. It's important to be able to propose new ways and new sounds without being stigmatised, censored or put aside. "

" 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. "

" I was born in the middle of Lebanon's civil war. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" Change means resistance, and resistance means transformation and igniting energies. "

" It's normal; Arab women have always been very active at the forefront of culture - as film producers since the 1920s; as singers, dancers, choreographers, writers for much longer than that. "

" 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. "

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

" We all have femininity in us. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "