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.
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.
My mom spent like a decade of her life living in Paris, and I grew up listening to a lot of French music as well as Arabic music.
Arabic is the language of Islam, but Arabic culture is not the culture of Islam.
As 'Dilbar' has become a huge hit internationally, including Middle East, we have taken the song and re-composed it, written Arabic and Moroccan lyrics, and we recorded, with me singing with Fnaire.
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 sing in Arabic as a statement. It's art, and it's a challenge.
The Arabic music I listen to is extremely edgy. Ironic, sarcastic, sensual, erotic.
I listen to a variety of music. I like everything from old Arabic music to Portuguese fados.
My children don't even know who Fairuz is - a horrifying thought.
I was a big fan of Middle Eastern elements of music and experimental electronic and tribal sounds.
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 love Khaliji music; it's very inspiring.
I lived in the Caribbean when I was a teenager, so I learned about Salsa and Cha-Cha and all these Latin Afro-Cuban music like Gillespie and Duke Ellington, also bridged with Jazz. But my mother is Greek, and so I've also listened a lot to Greek music. And through the years to Balcanic music to Arabic music because my father loved music from Egypt.
