WEST BANK: Palestinians cheer for their candidate in the famous pan-Arab song contest "Superstar"

Record ID: 562675

  • Title: WEST BANK: Palestinians cheer for their candidate in the famous pan-Arab song contest "Superstar"
  • Date: 16th April 2008
  • Summary: AL-SWEITI FAMILY AND RELATIVES WATCHING MURAD'S PERFORMANCE IN "SUPERSTAR" ON TELEVISION VARIOUS OF RELATIVES WATCHING TELEVISION SCREEN SHOWING MURAD'S PERFORMANCE/ RELATIVES WATCHING CLOSE OF AMAL AL-SWEITI WATCHING AL-SWEITI FAMILY AND RELATIVES APPLAUDING
  • Embargoed: 1st May 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVASQ1FHN2EWZHCQ6FVIXDYPYOD
  • Story Text: Eighteen-year-old Murad al-Sweiti from the West Bank town of Jericho is the only Palestinian competing in the pan-Arab song contest "Superstar".
    Eighteen-year-old Murad al-Sweiti from Jericho is the only Palestinian contender for the title of "Superstar" on one of the most popular television shows in the Arab world.
    Now in its fifth season, the song contest "Superstar" pits twenty contestants against each other, after holding auditions in countries as disparate as the UAE and Tunisia.
    The format for the programme was adapted from the British talent show "Pop Idol" and is broadcast on Future Television, a Lebanese satellite channel.
    It is the first "Idol" franchise to feature contestants from multiple countries and audiences from anywhere around the world can vote for their favourite singers via telephone, sms messaging or the internet.
    Murad says he has been singing since he was a child, encouraged and trained by his father Saeed, also an amateur musician.
    "I would hear a song and try to sing along. My father saw that I liked music so he tried to develop my talent. He began to train me and I practised a lot until I reached a good standard. I hope to get a music degree in the future," Murad told Reuters from his home in Jericho.
    "You could tell that he had a nice voice when he was still in kindergarten and he had to sing the national anthem. I began to gradually train him. I would ask him to sing for me, make him sing along to music on the television, and so forth," his father added.
    Murad and the nineteen other contestants were selected from a pool of applicants in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia, no small feat for the 18-year-old from a modest town in the West Bank.
    Now well into the semi-finals, friends and family are pinning their hopes on Murad's success, reminding him that he is "the voice of Palestine" on the programme. Undaunted, the young singer says he will rise to the challenge.
    "I am the only Palestinian candidate on the show, "Superstar". So I have a very big responsibility to make Palestine proud. I hope to be able to live up to it," Murad said.
    While other Palestinian contestants have appeared on previous seasons, Murad is the first to come from the occupied Palestinian territories.
    "He has a nice voice and we want to support him in developing his talent. We don't want him to be disillusioned like his father. His father used to have one of the most beautiful voices in Palestine but he lacked the opportunities to become famous. We want things to be different for Murad.
    Hopefully he will take advantage of this chance and succeed," Murad's mother Amal said.
    Saeed al-Sweiti, who works at the local municipality, used to be the frontman for a Palestinian-Lebanese band called "al-Arz" in the early 1980s. He has long since forsaken his dreams of stardom. Murad, on the other hand, might just make his father's dream come true.
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