Inside a café in Paris’s well-heeled 17th arrondissement, we meet Hiba Tawaji over a steaming cup of coffee as temperatures all across the country continue their unforgiving descent. Arriving dressed to the nines— almost as if she’s en route to a far more rarified encounter than ours— the Lebanese actress and singer settles into her seat, neatly, as I scuffle, buried under a stack of winter layers, my nose barely visible above a scarf that does little to conceal the occasional, decidedly unglamorous, sniffs.
“It’s a race — the kids, work,” she said, confessing that she’d been stretched thin, though nothing in her composure betrayed that. “In parallel, I’m preparing a project with Ibrahim (Maalouf, her partner), which will be a tribute to French chanson. We’ve already performed it, twice actually, in Lyon and in Turkey, and the audience welcomed it so warmly. They loved the concert just as much as we loved being on stage together so we just said, let’s do it.”
She goes on, almost in the same breath, to outline what’s next: a French-language album — her first — built entirely on original songs, and, running alongside it, her next Arabic album, the first tracks of which she has already begun to release. Seated across from her, whatever I had convinced myself was consuming my time and energy began to feel almost embarrassingly minor beside the litany she had just recited. And yet, for a celebrated vocalist whose imprint on the cultural fabric of the Middle East is indisputable, I found myself compelled to ask why does the French language occupy so much room in her artistic practice, especially at a time when most of the discourse gravitating around the world of culture seems so determined to distance itself from the encroachments the Western World has left behind since colonizing eras.
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“When you’re Lebanese, you’re often bilingual, sometimes even trilingual,” she explained. “My second language was French. I studied in French, my university was in French, so of course I was influenced by French chanson. It’s something you grow up with in Lebanon; it’s very present.” Speaking of this double culture as something absorbed in classrooms and shaped through family conversations rather than passively inherited at birth, the Beirut-born artist framed her attraction to French not as a post-colonial artefact but as an organic part of her being; a facet of herself she now wishes to share with her audience, whether they speak or understand the language or not.
“When I met Oussama Rahbani and began my career in 2007, I released albums in Arabic, I performed concerts, musicals, all of that. But I always had a dream which was to create the same connection with the French and francophone public that I built with the Arab audience,“ the 37-year-old revealed. “For me, it’s a continuity. It’s not as if I’m abandoning one path to embark on another. They complement each other, and in many ways, broaden the horizon.” Confident in ways the diaspora, in such scenarios, are often conditioned to mute in order to be perceived as adaptable or that they too belong, the Maakoul singer explained feeling no apprehension whatsoever about how her fans might respond to this new chapter. “I won’t lose my audience,“ she plainly said. “I still sing in Arabic, I still give concerts in Arabic, I still release albums in Arabic. I’m still very present in the Arab musical landscape. This is simply something added, a continuation of everything I’ve been building.”
Denying any suggestion that this shift is part of any calculated strategy, Tawaji also disclosed feeling relatively unbothered by the recurring debates surrounding today’s multilingual artists. When asked about this new generation — the Saint Levants, the Elyannas, the Zeinas — whose intentions are often scrutinized online, questioned for whether they sing in multiple languages for visibility, or, as it in her case, because it is simply intrinsic to who they are, she offered a measured response.
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“When you’re authentic, when you do it because you genuinely feel it, because you truly feel the need to express yourself in all these languages, then it becomes natural, it becomes sincere,” she asserted. “The audience can feel when it isn’t forced. But when it’s done purely for marketing reasons, or because it’s fashionable, it reads differently; you sense immediately whether it’s rooted in something genuine or not,” the Paris-based vocalist added, emphasizing on how multilingualism is also a product of the global world we live in as well. “For me, this way of thinking is also quite modern. Mixing languages reflects the world we live in today: cosmopolitan, global, constantly in dialogue. Languages blend everywhere. There’s this openness to cultures, and musically, it’s incredibly enriching.”
As she explains, it is ultimately how one approaches work that determines the direction they take — and what allows a career to endure. With more than two decades of experience under her belt, Tawaji articulated the principle that has governed her longevity so far: a commitment to always moving forward. “For me, it’s about continuing to make new projects, anticipating what comes next, staying inside a creative process, a form of evolution, of constant self-interrogation. I think that’s what allows things to endure. The choices, the right decisions, and being surrounded by the right people. Creation depends so much on inspiration, and on whether one has the drive to pursue it.”
And it’s clearly working for her. Beyond surviving an industry as notoriously cutthroat and crowded as this one, and beyond cultivating an audience of thousands who follow her work with steadfast loyalty, she has also carved out moments that sit squarely in the region’s cultural memory, not least becoming the first woman ever to sing on stage in Saudi Arabia.
“I had released a song (Min Elli Bi’yekhtar) that spoke about women’s emancipation; about a woman’s right to choose her own destiny. It was a powerful song for women,” she recalls. “Then, in 2017, it suddenly went viral again on social media, and it ended up accompanying, in a way, the many changes happening in Saudi Arabia at the time. I was contacted and invited to perform there, and I accepted, because for me it represented an important step; a way of contributing to an evolution that is still continuing today.” She speaks of the moment not through the lens of personal milestone, but through the political and cultural weight it carried beneath it.
“For me, the power of music was unmistakable in that moment: seeing things shift, even slightly, through a song. That particular track helped free certain conversations that had never been spoken aloud before. It became an unforgettable memory for me. I remember that the audience was made up entirely of women, and they were genuinely happy to be there. It moved me deeply to take part in such a moment, to witness something historic, and to feel that kind of communion with the women in the room. It was relayed everywhere afterwards, and the connection I felt with them was extraordinary,” she remembered. “It also coincided with the moment when women were granted the right to drive, and I had even released a music video version of that same song as a tribute to that milestone. I genuinely believe that any cultural, musical, or social progress is progress for the world at large.”
And it is the sum of all these experiences that ultimately shaped who she is today and built her success over the years. Regarded as something of a senior figure by a younger generation still clawing for its place amid the churn of ephemeral TikTok hits, I asked her, before letting our conversation draw to a close, whether she felt she had a role to play within this emerging cohort. She admitted that younger artists often reach out to her. “I’m often approached by young people who tell me they listen to my music, that they, too, dream of becoming singers, that they love my voice,” she said. “These messages move me deeply. I try to respond when I can; I also try, through my music and the interviews I give, to remain as authentic and as simple as possible, to show things as they truly are,” she said, stressing, once again, how choices across art, work, and the wider terrain of one’s existence form the compass by which an artist’s path is kept steady.
“You have to know when to say no, and just as importantly, when to say yes. You need to constantly be learning and think long-term,” she concluded, her parting thought accompanying us out into Paris’ freezing streets.
Tawaji’s most recent project dropped on Nov. 7; a vinyl version of her album Live, recorded during her concert at L’Olympia in Paris. Lead picture courtesy of Jeremy Zaessinger
