Radio
ArabicOriental

This isn't just a playlist of Arab divas. It is a musical timeline tracing how female Arabic artists — and Arabic music itself — evolved over the course of nearly a century.

Some artists, like Umm Kulthum, built monumental songs around classical poetry and full orchestras. Others, like Fairuz, created intimate, almost cinematic soundscapes. But what unites them is that they weren't simply remarkable singers. Each of them represents a different chapter in the story of Arabic music, from the golden age of Egyptian cinema to today's pan-Arab pop scene.

So, who will you meet during this one-hour journey?

I won't list every name, but here are a few highlights.

  • Asmahan — the glamorous star of the 1940s whose career was tragically cut short when she died in a car accident at just 31. Born into the influential Al-Atrash family, a prominent Druze dynasty from what is now Syria, she was already ahead of her time — blending classical Arabic singing with Western musical influences. It sounds almost unlikely, but she made it work.
  • Fairuz, who turned quietness into an art form and became the voice of peaceful mornings, poetry, and, in many ways, Lebanon itself.
  • Samira Said, who marks the shift into modern Arabic pop. By the 1980s, she was combining Western production with Arabic melodies, helping shape the sound that many of today's biggest Arab artists would later build upon.

But the undisputed centrepiece of the playlist is Umm Kulthum. One fact alone says almost everything about her legacy: her concerts regularly stretched over several hours because audiences would beg her to repeat their favourite passages again and again, chasing the powerful emotional state known as tarab.