Fairuz

And it's interesting, if you look at depictions of Lebanese identity, it is still rooted in Mount Lebanon.

Like some of these Feiruz films or the Rahbani brothers, rather, their films, very Mount Lebanon and very Christian.

Yeah.

But yes, the origin of it is as a colonial state that the French helped created with the local elites.

Yeah

... routine and go to Beirut to watch theater of Fairuz.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

And then she's also doing the second half with some well-loved Arabic songs as well.

So some Dalida, some Fairuz.

So it's going to be a really great experience.

And I'm just so proud to have seen that evolution of Dubai Opera from, you know, the two worlds.

You hate listening to, for example, you know, filthy music and dirty pop music and things like that, that tell you to do all sorts of things.

Isn't that correct? We know the pop world, don't we? What's the pop music? You tell a common person, hey bro, they say is it halal to listen to music? If I said yes, what are they going to listen to? Beethoven? Beethoven or whatever his name is? You know, the old singers Umm Kulthum and Fayruz, they're old school, the Arabic ones.

No one even listens to Michael Jackson anymore.

That's old school.

It is all done AI.

All these legends, Fayrouz, Abdul Haneem, Uncle Thoom, AI, you know, people use AI to recreate these images, these songs.

And it's just, for me, I don't like that.

So he's saying it's getting harder and harder for us to know the truth.

And knowing that this kid had this opportunity to come in and do something with his life in the U.S. and make his parents proud and to risk so much by saying, no doctor, no tech job, I'm going to go and I'm going to try to be a DJ.

And his parents... living that dream with him and saying fine you want to give this a shot let's see what you got and him doing it this guy's not just doing some like tiny you know uh spot this guy's doing like mega uh parties and clubs and stuff and what is he doing he's showing people how to love their cultures again And he's even showing how people from India who are listening to their music, why they should love Umm Khaldun, you know, why they should love Fayruz.

So this is an important part of what we do.

This is our culture.

Un Kelsum for night, Feroz in the morning.

And that Egyptian boyfriend I was mentioning, he used to, when he was making us breakfast or we went for drives in the morning, we would listen to Feiruz.

And so I feel it now.

It feels good in the morning.

It was empty.

It was just us.

And I asked them to put on some Feiruz.

It was probably just past noon.

Mm-hmm.

You used to have, you know, the iconic Lebanese singer, Fairuz, would often open the show and, you know, it was a really big event.

So I think, you know, the sort of revival of these- Kind of events in the Damascus calendar really are, are gonna give a sense of hope and a momentum.

Well, we shall conclude with travel generally, and to the modern dilemma of whether to stay in a hotel with all the amenities and accountability that comes therewith, or in an Airbnb, i.e., the house of a stranger who may or may not answer late-night inquiries about where the goddamn key lockbox is, or uphold elementary levels of bathroom hygiene, have ever washed the bedding, or have been entirely clear on the listing about the rowdy family of raccoons in the roof.