Beirut’s Pop Princess

Myriam Fares

July 6, 2008: You probably haven’t heard of her, but you’ll be glad you did. A few weeks ago on You Tube, I stumbled across a music video of Shakira singing and dancing to a song called Nadini. As always, her dance moves were enough to make even the most talented dancer jealous. And then it hit me. That wasn’t Shakira’s voice. The lyrics weren’t even in Spanish.. they were in Arabic. I checked the singer’s name, Myriam Fares, and looked up her songs on Project Playlist . It’s no wonder that the prodigy of south Lebanon is famous in the east. The 25 year old has a number of catchy singles, my favorites being Leih Habibi, Shou Baddo Yssir, and Gh’morni. And in music videos like Nadini , La Tes’Alni, and Waheshni Eih, Myriam shows off dance skills worthy of her Cuban counterpart. For people like me who don’t speak a word of Arabic, a site called arabicmusictranlation.com translates her most popular works into English. Once you start her uplifting pop beats and jawdropping videos, you’ll be too mesmerized to pull away.