I sing 'Beirut' for what the city is for me, but I am also singing as an exile.
When I go to Beirut, I don't drive. It's traumatizing to drive there.
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.
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.
Collaborating with other artists is an emotional thing. Obviously, you don't do it unless this person inspires you.
Because of the Lebanese civil war, I had a scattered childhood. I had to build my own connections to each country we moved to.
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.
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.
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.
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.
All of the Arabic women I grew up listening to or watching had a very strong character.
'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.
