Lucify.ch speaks with the emerging musician from Lebanon — Frida about her music, her creative process, and the power of music in storytelling.
Parul Chhaparia
Passion is not easy to explain. Especially if you have to describe it for someone else. However, in the case of the Lebanese soul singer Frida, even after a couple of months of meeting her, all I can remember is how fervently she spoke about her music, intermingling music into spirituality and storytelling. Her warm smile, gritty voice, and free-flowing conversation exhibited her natural ability to instantly connect with her audience. From her childhood to her singing inspirations to her spiritual practices, her conversations flowed almost as rhythmically as her creative process, reflecting a piece of the real Frida.
In her creative process, the words come last. “I have music that starts inside. Second, comes the melody. I practice until I have the groove, like how I want it to feel. Once I have the melody, I play with my close friends, my father, and my family. I ask them what do they feel. All this is still the construction. At some point, the lyrics start flowing,” she shared.
Similarly, in her storytelling, emotions take priority. “It is a bit different kind of storytelling. Usually, in storytelling, words are important. Here, the emotions are. It is a state of mind that I am in, fully, unapologetically. Not trying to control anything around me…I know when I am completely there, I know everyone is there. That’s for me is the purpose of the song.”
Frida comes from Lebanon. She never formally learned music. But, growing up in a family of music lovers, she gladly owes her musical talents to her parents’ impeccable taste in music. “My mom brought the French music storytellers into my life and dad brought the jazz and funk… so it was very natural that my fabric absorbed all of these,” she said.
Frida’s creative musical endeavour has moved many, much beyond the borders and languages. She played three gigs in Zurich last December and all of them were a ‘full-house’, despite her singing in Arabic. “The proof is, I sing mostly in Arabic, but I can see people moving, their emotions go beyond words. This is the new narrative. I feel blessed to have a chance to be able to tell it.”
The songwriter and singer, who also feels a bit hesitant to call herself a musician yet, does not follow the conventional way of laboriously writing any songs, or selecting a particular topic. Her process is more in-the-moment and more ingenious. She draws inspirations for her songs often from what she feels around her – the joy, the pain, the beauty, and the spirit of life.
“You know the word pronoia? I love it. For me, everything I see is a good song. Everything has a poetry all the time. That is where my story comes from,” she stated.
Following her headstart, Frida’s wishlist also includes international collaboration. “I do have my wishlist for the collaborations. I know this is going to happen. Because what I look for before anything is the frequency, the vibe, and the energy of the artist. When I resonate strongly it means we are on a similar wavelength. It means we are going to rotate it into each other’s reality. So, no hurry. But yes, there are a few that I feel are doing music for the same reasons as me,” she shared.
