Remembering Saudi Singer Etab 15 Years Since Her Death

Etab and Abdel Halim Hafez. (Facebook)
Etab and Abdel Halim Hafez. (Facebook)
TT
20

Remembering Saudi Singer Etab 15 Years Since Her Death

Etab and Abdel Halim Hafez. (Facebook)
Etab and Abdel Halim Hafez. (Facebook)

“A warm voice, an endearing face, and an unhappy ending,” this is how we simply describe the journey of late Saudi artist Etab, one of the greatest female singers in the Arab world. Etab died 15 years ago, on August 19, concluding a journey full of success, distinction, and challenges.

Those who followed her journey believe that the secret of her experience was in the “timing”. Etab was born and raised in the 1950s, a period marked by social traditions that hindered young girls and prevented them from expressing themselves, and the emotions of their generation, such as happiness, struggle, and yearning for love, and marriage.

But those challenges were confronted by a young Saudi talent, Tarouf Abdulkhair Adam Muhammad al-Talal Hawsawi, later known as Etab. She started singing when she was 13, at social and familial gatherings in Riyadh.

She performed her first song “Ya Bent”, composed by Fawzi al-Simoni, in 1966. Then, she moved to Jeddah, where she was sponsored, supported, and cheered by late artist Talal Maddah.

Then, Etab moved to Kuwait, where she was seen as a new female voice that took the music scene by storm. She made a successful singing duo with Haidar Fekri. They performed several live concerts together, which brought her into the spotlight.

Despite her major achievements, Etab still needed that one magic touch that would shoot her to fame. It came in 1972 when Egyptian legend Abdel Halim Hafez introduced her at one of his concerts where she performed with a female band and sang Saudi folkloric songs.

Etab would soon settle in Cairo, then the Arab world’s musical hub. She would live there for 20 years, starting from the 1980s, during which her career would peak.

She would dominate the female singing scene with songs such as “Jani al-Asmar” and “Mita Ashoufaq”.

The final chapter of her life would be the worst in her journey. It was marked by a dispute with her second husband that led them both to court. Little is known about the dispute, but she accused him of stealing $5 million from her, media reported at the time. The case ended with their divorce.

By the time she found out she had cancer, it was terminal, and she died quietly in 2007.

Art critic Mohammed Refaat describes Etab as a “pioneer”.

“She opened the door for women in the Gulf to step into the singing world. Since that time, men’s domination of this field ended, and we have seen many great women singers including UAE’s Ahlam, and Kuwait’s Nawal,” he remarked.

“Etab’s talents went beyond singing. She was a brilliant composer as well. She composed for herself and other artists. She was also a great live performer,” Refaat told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Moreover, he credited Etab with discovering many singing talents through the “Jalsat Tarab” program, which she co-presented.

“She always insisted on singing in the Saudi dialect, although it could have been easier for her to copy what her peers did and sing in the Egyptian dialect to make her more accessible to audiences and gain more fame and success,” he added.



The Music Industry is Battling AI -- with Limited Success

The music industry is particularly concerned about non-authorized use of its content to train generative AI models. LLUIS GENE / AFP
The music industry is particularly concerned about non-authorized use of its content to train generative AI models. LLUIS GENE / AFP
TT
20

The Music Industry is Battling AI -- with Limited Success

The music industry is particularly concerned about non-authorized use of its content to train generative AI models. LLUIS GENE / AFP
The music industry is particularly concerned about non-authorized use of its content to train generative AI models. LLUIS GENE / AFP

The music industry is fighting on platforms, through the courts and with legislators in a bid to prevent the theft and misuse of art from generative AI -- but it remains an uphill battle.

Sony Music said recently it has already demanded that 75,000 deepfakes -- simulated images, tunes or videos that can easily be mistaken for real -- be rooted out, a figure reflecting the magnitude of the issue.

The information security company Pindrop says AI-generated music has "telltale signs" and is easy to detect, yet such music seems to be everywhere.

"Even when it sounds realistic, AI-generated songs often have subtle irregularities in frequency variation, rhythm and digital patterns that aren't present in human performances," said Pindrop, which specializes in voice analysis.

But it takes mere minutes on YouTube or Spotify -- two top music-streaming platforms -- to spot a fake rap from 2Pac about pizzas, or an Ariana Grande cover of a K-pop track that she never performed.

"We take that really seriously, and we're trying to work on new tools in that space to make that even better," said Sam Duboff, Spotify's lead on policy organization.

YouTube said it is "refining" its own ability to spot AI dupes, and could announce results in the coming weeks.

"The bad actors were a little bit more aware sooner," leaving artists, labels and others in the music business "operating from a position of reactivity," said Jeremy Goldman, an analyst at the company Emarketer.

"YouTube, with a multiple of billions of dollars per year, has a strong vested interest to solve this," Goldman said, adding that he trusts they're working seriously to fix it.

"You don't want the platform itself, if you're at YouTube, to devolve into, like, an AI nightmare," he said.

Litigation

But beyond deepfakes, the music industry is particularly concerned about unauthorized use of its content to train generative AI models like Suno, Udio or Mubert.

Several major labels filed a lawsuit last year at a federal court in New York against the parent company of Udio, accusing it of developing its technology with "copyrighted sound recordings for the ultimate purpose of poaching the listeners, fans and potential licensees of the sound recordings it copied."

More than nine months later, proceedings have yet to begin in earnest. The same is true for a similar case against Suno, filed in Massachusetts.

At the center of the litigation is the principle of fair use, allowing limited use of some copyrighted material without advance permission. It could limit the application of intellectual property rights.

"It's an area of genuine uncertainty," said Joseph Fishman, a law professor at Vanderbilt University.

Any initial rulings won't necessarily prove decisive, as varying opinions from different courts could punt the issue to the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, the major players involved in AI-generated music continue to train their models on copyrighted work -- raising the question of whether the battle isn't already lost.

Fishman said it may be too soon to say that: although many models are already training on protected material, new versions of those models are released continuously, and it's unclear whether any court decisions would create licensing issues for those models going forward.

Deregulation

When it comes to the legislative arena, labels, artists and producers have found little success.

Several bills have been introduced in the US Congress, but nothing concrete has resulted.

A few states -- notably Tennessee, home to much of the powerful country music industry -- have adopted protective legislation, notably when it comes to deepfakes.

Donald Trump poses another potential roadblock: the Republican president has postured himself as a champion of deregulation, particularly of AI.

Several giants in AI have jumped into the ring, notably Meta, which has urged the administration to "clarify that the use of publicly available data to train models is unequivocally fair use."

If Trump's White House takes that advice, it could push the balance against music professionals, even if the courts theoretically have the last word.

The landscape is hardly better in Britain, where the Labor government is considering overhauling the law to allow AI companies to use creators' content on the internet to help develop their models, unless rights holders opt out.

More than a thousand musicians, including Kate Bush and Annie Lennox, released an album in February entitled "Is This What We Want?" -- featuring the sound of silence recorded in several studios -- to protest those efforts.

For analyst Goldman, AI is likely to continue plaguing the music industry -- as long as it remains unorganized.

"The music industry is so fragmented," he said. "I think that that winds up doing it a disservice in terms of solving this thing."