The Artist Who Linked Two Worlds

Noel Kharman is a 21-year-old Palestinian singer and songwriter who sings several different mashups between western and Arabic music. The artist's mashup between “hello” by Adele and “keffak inta” by fairouz went viral worldwide within 3 days in 2015 with over 5.9 million views exposing the world to Arabic music.

I first came across Noel Kharman through watching a spiral of never-ending youtube videos, as I heard the beautiful song by Noel Kharman collaborating both Arabic and western music in tranquil harmony through combining the songs “Hello” and “keefak inta”. After going viral Kharman’s series of mashups increased as she released various new songs including “dance monkey” and “tamaly ma3ak”, “despacito” and “akheran galaha” and my absolute favorite “desert rose” and “inta omry” due to the way the music fills the air, transporting me into a completely different world.

Kharman currently has numerous original songs that are prospering, including “home” which she released in 2020 as well as “I believe” which she released in 2017 and currently has over 2 million views on YouTube. The success of Noel Kharman’s song was achieved with the help of her mother in writing the Arabic lyrics and the composer Philip Halloun in composing the music of the songs.

Through her music, Noel Kharman shows the juxtaposition between the 2 music cultures and satisfies both the middle eastern community and the western community, by combining famous Arabic songs as well as well-known English songs. In my opinion, Kharman’s songs are a success in aims to shed light on the middle eastern culture to the west, as well as shedding light on the western culture to the middle east, achieving a sense of equal globalization throughout the world by creating music that is calming, breathtaking and transcendent to the listeners' ears.