Tania Saleh: A Woman Called Wehde

Beirut - Wearing a silky black gown and a sparkly tiara in her hair, Tania Saleh captivated her audience the moment she came on stage Wednesday evening at Beirut’s venue Democratic Republic of Music (DRM). She seemed so in touch with her soul that she might as well have sprung from the past, or from some imagined, less complicated future.

Chances are you’ve never seen Saleh on any of the Arab world’s 24/7 music TV stations. But that doesn’t mean you haven’t heard her music. Saleh wrote the lyrics for “Mreyte ya Mreyte”, which became the title song for Nadine Labaki’s blockbuster Caramel (2007).

Saleh has been working on her music for years though. On her Twitter account, she had announced Wednesday’s gig with a warning cloaked in humor: “I will be coming with 14 years of musical baggage.”

By no means a newbie on the underground Arab music scene, she successfully blended disparate musical influences such as Lebanese dabke and jazz with rock ‘n’ roll using Latin American rhythms. Being the diva she is, she could get away with anything.

But Saleh can’t live off her music. “I work in advertising, though I would love to make enough from my music to live off it,” she said. “The commercial music industry is not looking for women like me. The industry looks for women who sell sexually, rather than musically.”

While she has two children and a day job to take care of, Saleh said she practises “all the time” alongside her six-member band. “Popular recognition for our work is growing in spite of the lack of television support. I don’t judge people who make it commercially, but there has to be another kind of Arabic music on offer that doesn’t follow the same patterns.”

The subtle power of her performance was reflected in her interpretation of two Lebanese traditional songs, “Ya Ein Mulayetein” and “Yaba Yaba Lah”.

People who were sitting down stood up and danced when they heard popular Lebanese music played for them in one of Beirut’s more up-scale music venues. This served as a reminder of the numerous, seemingly contradictory roles Saleh has taken on. While her own music was for the most part fusion-based, “we shouldn’t forget we are Lebanese. I may be incorporating influences from all over the world, but the music we make is Lebanese.”

Saleh is proud of these contradictions. “Sometimes, as women, we contradict ourselves,” said Saleh. “We can be soft one minute, and strong the next. That’s just part of us.”

Because Saleh embraced contradiction, her performance Wednesday did not suffer from any of the sound clash that so often characterizes fusion concerts. Indeed her love of all music has even penetrated the upbringing of her children. “At home we listen to all kinds of music,” she said. “This helps make them more innovative.”

Defiant in the face of social and financial pressures to streamline her work - and perhaps even her life - Saleh also sang about resisting categorization and, thereby, division. For instance, “Omar wa Ali” on her latest album Wehde (2011), urged interaction and unity among Lebanese from different sects.

In this sense, her persona transmitted integrity and an idealism she has long fought for through music. Her latest album, Wehde, was based on a concept of a female character who dreamed of a united, peaceful, harmonious Lebanon. In Arabic, the word Wehde has several meanings: One (female) person, loneliness, and unity. In keeping with the revolutionary spirit of 2011, the album was also about the hope that this character’s dream may come true.

Saleh was modest and unwilling to describe herself in any overly grandiose terms. “I don’t want to be Lady Gaga or Haifa Wehbe,” Saleh said. “I’m just trying to find my own personality through my lyrics and expression,” she said.