creative vision? emel mathlouthi, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. now, you have had phenomenal success around the world since the arab spring, which propelled you to global fame. what is it now that still drives you to want to shake people? so many things. i guess, first of all, my passion for people and music and connecting. i feel that nowadays, more than ever, we need to connect with each other, and i feel that if we have this sense of union and empathy towards each other, i feel that the world could be a much better place. well, let s go back to 2010, 2011, and at that time your music was banned in tunisia. you were on avenue habib bourguiba in tunis, you were surrounded by crowds who were all chanting and then this happened. she sings in arabic. we are seeing you there, singing, with a candle lit in front of you, and to the crowds. when you watch it, how do you feel about that moment now? i ve always felt, um, kind of distant because ijust.me, i just remember the tension
thank you. now, you have had phenomenal success around the world since the arab spring, which propelled you to global fame. what is it now that still drives you to want to shake people? so many things. i guess, first of all, my passion for people and music and connecting. i feel that nowadays, more than ever, we need to connect with each other, and i feel that if we have this sense of union and empathy towards each other, i feel that the world could be a much better place. well, let s go back to 2010, 2011, and at that time your music was banned in tunisia. you were on avenue habib bourguiba in tunis, you were surrounded by crowds who were all chanting and then this happened. she sings in arabic. we are seeing you there, singing, with a candle lit in front of you, and to the crowds. when you watch it, how do you feel about that moment now? i ve always felt, um, kind of distant because ijust.me, i just remember the tension, and ijust remember that it wasn t all friendly around
that were still trying to push forfreedom. so i thought that it totally made sense for me to be outside so i could carry my voice as broad as possible for the cause. right. so what? so there wasn t a moment where you thought, i ll stay ? you left. i never thought exactly that i left. i thought that i. i was serving the purpose in a friendlier environment. so it was going to work much better to spread the message than if i stayed. and i don t think i ve thought about going back to tunisia, like, literally to live there, because i was also. i was very satisfied of the way my artistic life was going. i was very interested in being in the centre of the world and being in connection with different musics, with different audiences, while still being profoundly tunisian.