ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Renowned Moroccan singer Samira Said has been chosen as the voice and face of Erbil for a music video celebrating the Kurdistan Region’s main city as the 2014 Tourism Capital of the Middle East.
“The song is for the occasion of Erbil being selected as the 2014 tourism capital for all the Arab countries,” said Said. “I was chosen as the face that will represent this city in the celebrations,” she added.
Lebanese music-video director Fadi Haddad is directing the project, which is currently at the filming stage. The song will be about Kurdistan and the nature of the region.
In 2012, four cities, including Erbil, Beirut, Taif and Sharjah competed to win the title of 2014 capital, where Erbil could won after presenting a 10-minute documentary video in Cairo.
Said, who was born in 1962 in the Moroccan capital of Rabat, is the winner of many Arab and international awards.
“I woke up at six in the morning to record the song,” she told Rudaw. The weather here is warm and encouraging,” she said.
Erbil also hosted the biggest folk dance festival in March, seeking to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. Thousands of people turned out for the event, dressed in traditional Kurdish clothes in downtown Erbil.
The video clip is not totally a patriotic one, because Said has been away from music for quite a while, explained Hadad. She cannot win the attention of many people (if the song is to be fully patriotic), so we decided to make it 50-50,” the director noted.
A Lebanese team is supervising the production of the video clip. The costumes and the accessories used in this video are prepared by Lesley.
Earlier this year, Kurdish singer Parwaz Hussein became the first Kurd to participate in the Arab Idol contest on MBC TV. Hussein reached the final stages of the competition and was able to better introduce Kurdish music to the Arab world.
