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" 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. "

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" 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 wanted to pursue my own thing - I had desires, ideas I wanted to accomplish, and I needed to be on my own for that. "

" The Arabic music I listen to is extremely edgy. Ironic, sarcastic, sensual, erotic. "

" I studied psychology at university. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" When I imagine feminine characters in my songs, they're often bold, strong, passionate, militant, witty, sensual, dangerous. I see those characters as skillful witnesses, figures of change and awakening. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I have learned to create from a hybridized point of view. It's an asset - something rather liberating. "

" 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. "

" There is something spiritual about art that connects us with ourselves and with others; it's really about coming together and creating bridges. "

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

" I don't relate to what is seen as 'Arab culture.' I relate to what I explore myself, what is around me. "

" Music liberated me. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" We all have femininity in us. "

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

" I am interested in exploring encounters where worlds meet and not where they separate. "

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