In a Dubai recording studio, hijab-clad Ghaliaa Chaker tunes her guitar and belts out unique songs as she builds a profession that’s turning heads for extra than simply her music.
The 26-year-old Syrian, who was raised within the United Arab Emirates, has develop into a social media sensation, with 437,000 followers on Instagram and hundreds of thousands of views on her YouTube channel.
She affords not solely a novel sound but additionally an uncommon look in a area the place artists who put on the hijab, the pinnacle overlaying attribute of Muslim ladies, are few and much between.
“I hope that I have paved the way for other” hijabi singers, Chaker advised AFP on the studio. “It is a very beautiful thing to know that you have… given a push to a girl who has many dreams and is unable to achieve them because she has never seen another girl do the same thing.”
Chaker, a eager bike rider who’s a part of an all-hijabi biker squad in Dubai, started composing and writing lyrics on the age of 16.
She drew inspiration from Nedaa Shrara, a veiled Jordanian singer who gained “The Voice”, the Arabic model of the favored TV expertise present, in 2015.
Shrara had stirred controversy amongst some Arab followers who weren’t accustomed to seeing a singer carrying the pinnacle overlaying.
But for Chaker, who says she usually receives criticism on-line, Shrara was a logo of “self-confidence”.
After seeing her, “I said to myself that I can do it too”, Chaker stated.
Chaker’s first track, composed in English, was picked up by Dubai radio stations in 2018, marking the beginning of her musical profession.
She now sings largely in Arabic, at a time when the regional music scene is witnessing the rise of younger skills with modern sounds.
The green-eyed singer stated the scarf has by no means been an impediment in her life.
“There is nothing that I have wanted to do and not done because I wear the veil,” Chaker stated.
However, the difficulty of ladies singing has at all times been controversial in conservative Islamic societies.
Although the Koran doesn’t explicitly prohibit singing, or ban ladies from performing music, some spiritual students frown upon the concept, viewing it as conceited.
Chaker stated her instant household has at all times supported her, however relations in Syria had been “very surprised at first”, primarily as a result of they feared how individuals would react.
She stated she receives numerous “negative comments” on social media, together with from household and buddies.
“It bothers me of course, but I try to remember the positive comments and how much people love my music,” she stated.
Chaker traces her creative influences to her early upbringing in Al Ain, a former desert oasis and now a metropolis in Abu Dhabi, one of many UAE’s seven sheikhdoms.
At residence, her father blasted Arab singers reminiscent of Fairouz, an iconic Lebanese singer, and Egyptian diva Umm Kalthoum. Chaker’s mom most popular Western music together with Elvis Presley.
“The music mixture in the house was always rich,” she stated, influencing her sound which she describes as a mixture of R&B, hip hop, electro pop, indie and jazz.
A multi-instrumentalist, Chaker credit her father together with her love of the drums, guitar and piano, all devices that she performs.
Instead of gifting her toys as a toddler, he would purchase her new devices, she stated.
The Middle Eastern darbuka drum is “the closest to my heart because I often played it with my father who loves it very much and it is the basis of oriental rhythm”, she stated.
In addition to Arabic and English, Chaker generally sings in Turkish, Armenian and Persian.
The singer, who carried out within the Lebanese capital Beirut in August, stated she desires to take her music past the Middle East.
“It is very important to me that my music is heard in Europe, in America, in Australia, in the whole world, maybe even in Latin America,” she stated, including that she aspires to “collaborate with many artists from different countries”.
“It is time for the Western world to know how beautiful our music is.”
© 2024 AFP