Top 68 Quotes & Sayings by Yasmine Hamdan
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Lebanese musician Yasmine Hamdan.
Last updated on September 18, 2024.
Because of the Lebanese civil war, I had a scattered childhood. I had to build my own connections to each country we moved to.
I sing in Arabic as a statement. It's art, and it's a challenge.
Without freedom and without humor, our cultures can't have a healthy evolution.
With Soapkills, we were lucky. We started at a time of transition where things were not ready, nothing was available.
I was raised by strong women, and the role models I had in music and cinema were strong, too - liberated and provocative.
'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.
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.
You do not start by working on society; you start by yourself to be a freer person and a more independent person.
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.
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.
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 have learned to create from a hybridized point of view. It's an asset - something rather liberating.
I've always fought any form of censorship.
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've always had a sense that I am doing something very important, something vital.
I have a sense of mission in a way. I've always worked on being free, as a woman and as an artist.
When I go to Beirut, I don't drive. It's traumatizing to drive there.
There is something spiritual about art that connects us with ourselves and with others; it's really about coming together and creating bridges.
I don't believe that there is a separation between art and political consciousness.
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.
When it comes to the lyrics, I write about my own perception of things and use characters for that.
When I read the Koran or hear it read, the images and the poetry, the sound of the language is very inspiring.
Faith is a very intimate process that involves being sincere and truthful to a spiritual presence.
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.
My dad was a brilliant civil engineer. My parents later divorced, but we lived in Abu Dhabi, Greece, Kuwait.
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.
I set the bar very high. I'm very tough on myself.
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.
I am interested in exploring encounters where worlds meet and not where they separate.
I was born in the middle of Lebanon's civil war.
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.
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.
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.
I sing 'Beirut' for what the city is for me, but I am also singing as an exile.
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.
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.
There should be no borders, race, colours, or ethnical considerations when it comes to music and creativity.
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'm bored, normally, when I travel.
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.
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.
We all have femininity in us.
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.
For me, a taxi is like a public space because so many people get in that space.
I follow my desires, and I'm prepared to take the consequences.
I always had this crisis: where do I come from? I was never an insider, never an outsider; I was always in the middle. But it means I never have borders in my head.
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.
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.
The Arabic music I listen to is extremely edgy. Ironic, sarcastic, sensual, erotic.
Music liberated me.
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.
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.
If you have a drummer who alternates between fast and slow drumming, it can negatively affect the music.
Change means resistance, and resistance means transformation and igniting energies.
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 inspired by many artists whose language I don't understand.
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.
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