Quotes from Yasmine Hamdan

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.

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.

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've always fought any form of censorship.

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

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

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.

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

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 love Khaliji music; it's very inspiring.

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 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.

Change means resistance, and resistance means transformation and igniting energies.

With Soapkills, we were lucky. We started at a time of transition where things were not ready, nothing was available.

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'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 Arabic music I listen to is extremely edgy. Ironic, sarcastic, sensual, erotic.

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.

When I read the Koran or hear it read, the images and the poetry, the sound of the language is very inspiring.

My dad was a brilliant civil engineer. My parents later divorced, but we lived in Abu Dhabi, Greece, Kuwait.

Women are a minority the same way gay people are.

Faith is a very intimate process that involves being sincere and truthful to a spiritual presence.

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.