Lebanese singer Grace Deeb started her singing career eight years ago and recently decided to release her first musical album. Grace filmed a video clip with director Suheil Abdoul, Lebanese singer Diana Haddad’s husband, for her song [Comme Toi].
Grace revealed that Suheil was the one who wanted to film her song [comme Toi] and she was the one who produced the song and directed it. Suheil’s job was only to distribute it and she reimbursed him for that but did not pay for the montage because of the dispute.
The whole problem was that Suheil wanted to sign a monopoly contract with Grace for three years and refused to release the video clip till she signs the contract. But Grace refused to sign after consulting her lawyer, who advised her against the matter.
The video clip triggered a dispute between the two after Grace hinted that her participation with Lebanese singer Assi Hillani in the duet [Lao Kan Alaya] was a big success and made the duet a hit. "I have been singing for the past eight years but never thought to have my own album until recently and that’s why I chose Rotana to produce my album," Grace explained.
Grace denied that Assi's wife is against her singing with him the duet and added that Collete, Assi's wife, was the one that nominated Grace to sing with Assi and that the main reason for not being able to do so is her work commitments.
According to the London based daily, Al-Quds, Grace said that her business manager Al-Anoud, who also works as executive producer in Rotana, convinced her to sign for Rotana saying that she will be able to achieve a bigger success than going with a different company.
Grace is traveling on the sixth of October to Frankfurt Germany to participate in the Frankfurt International Book Fair after being invited by the organizers. The management of the book fair wrote to Rotana asking for one Arab singer to join the international event and represent the Middle East region. Rotana sent a list of its artists and a sample of their work and the organizers chose Grace because of her remarkable talent and her ability to mix between western and Eastern music.
The organizers say that hosting an Arab artist is very important to show that music is the language of the world and has an important role in getting the nations closer to each other. A special CD will be issued containing all the songs for the participants in the book fair and Grace is supposed to participate with three songs which are not known yet.
The concert will be held on October 8th on the Kinh Kameha Club which is one of the most popular theatres in Europe where the American television music channel MTV usually holds its concerts
Deeb has just released her first album, which features songs sung in the Lebanese and Egyptian accents, in Jordan earlier this month. The singer worked with a number of prominent poets and composers, in addition to adding some of her own composition for most of the songs.
The first album also contains a classic song entitled “Ana Habeit” (I fell in love), words by Marwan Khoury and tune by Boudy Naoum. Grace's album is a blend of Arabic, English and French songs using the right mix of eastern and western instruments. –Albawaba.com
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
