Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

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

Related Quotes:

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

" I have a sense of mission in a way. I've always worked on being free, as a woman and as an artist. "

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

" I'm inspired by many artists whose language I don't understand. "

" You do not start by working on society; you start by yourself to be a freer person and a more independent person. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" Collaborating with other artists is an emotional thing. Obviously, you don't do it unless this person inspires you. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" If you have a drummer who alternates between fast and slow drumming, it can negatively affect the music. "

" 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. "

" I met Jim Jarmusch when I started recording my album 'Ya Nass.' He was writing the script for 'Only Lovers Left Alive.' Jarmusch was always a great inspiration to me, way before meeting him. Working with him was fantastic. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" '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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Music liberated me. "

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