At 17 she was spotted by a few Moroccan Jewish musicians playing Arabic music at the home of a friend, an Arab girl from Nazareth. After that she spent years working in bars, singing the classics of the Egyptian diva Oum Kalthoum, fending off aggressive and drunk men. She lived at home in those years, helping her diabetic mother and cleaning houses to supplement what her father made driving a cab. “My mother didn’t want to let me, because what will the neighbors say, the relatives,” she remembered. Winning the TV song contest in 2012 propelled her from the bars onto the bottom rungs of the mizrahi pop scene.

Source: The North Africa Journal February 26, 2020 06:00 UTC