Tunisian singer Latifa has won the World Music Award for her latest album “Ma Itrouhshi Ib’eed” (Don’t Go Far) and the enormous success it has been witnessing around the world. The singer won the award for Best work by an Arab artist for the entire Middle East area.
The grand awards ceremony will be held on September 15 at the Thomas and Mack Center. It has been revealed that the American television network ABC will broadcast the event live in the US, Canada, and Mexico, whereas the music satellite channel Mazzika has bought the rights to broadcast the ceremony to the Arab world.
Latifa will be the first Tunisian singer to win the international award, proving that she has come a long way in her career. Last year the award was given to Moroccan singer Samira Sa’eed and the year before that to Egyptian singer Amr Diab.
Latifa revealed that she does not consider herself a singer belonging to one nationality, but rather an Arab singer who does not recognize boundaries between Arab countries. She is one of the rare singers who believe that they have a cause in life and that the artist should be a major tool to form the general Arab conscious. Latifa has her own points of view about political issues in the region.
Latifa revealed that she thinks America will not leave other nations to live in peace until it steals all their natural resources. Latifa added "I'm afraid there will be time when America considers the olive and orange trees weapons of mass destruction."
With regards to her political point of view, she accepted to participate in the Mansour Rahbani play “Hokm el Ri’yan”. What made the play different was that Latifa offered more of her personality to the work and succeeded in adding her own soul to the role, the thing that other great singers were not able to do when dealing with any of the Rahbanis.
The play was a great success but Latifa did not agree with critics who said that Latifa was the key for the success of the play, adding that the play was going to succeed even if she did not participate in it but her role added a bit of vitality to the work.
Latifa added that she is wiling to do more plays if they are at the same level of the Rahbani School in theatre, and added that the next target in theatre will be acting beside Mohammed Subhi.
Latifa concluded by saying that she is proud of her success away from Satellite channels which depends on revealing body parts of female singers, adding that national and patriotic songs are still being heard and people still like to hear them. -Albawaba.com
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
