Balqees Fathi On A Decade In Music, Advocating For Women’s Rights, and Beauty From The Inside-Out
As the singer celebrates 10 years in the industry, she shares her secrets for career longevity and explains why female empowerment will always be her number one priority…
Balqees Fathi is passionately telling the story of a woman she’s helped save from a life of domestic violence. A woman who contacted her through Instagram, with a direct message sharing pictures of her bruised and battered body, begging for help. “We get thousands of private messages, so I don’t know how my eye caught that message… probably because the pictures were very harmful,” she explains. “They touched me, and I felt like I had a responsibility to help.”
Balqees provided the financial and emotional support for the woman to be able to be able to become independent and set up as a freelance hairdresser, and the lady now has a successful career and is the happy, sole provider for her children.
This is just one of the many happy endings that Balqees is responsible for in her work as a women’s rights advocate. And this is just one of the multiple times during our interview that we have a girl-crush moment over the star’s achievements; be they in her role progressing female empowerment, as a mother to her two-year-old son, Turki, as a beauty entrepreneur, or as a singer – the field she’s most famous for.
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Balqees is humble, hugely likeable and has an astonishing, chameleonic ability to adapt with the fast-moving music industry, and this year celebrates her 10th anniversary in the business. She’s as popular with her fans now as she’s ever been, and her impeccable work ethic and friendly demeanour make her a no-brainer for global brands to collaborate with – including being part of Piaget’s Extraordinary Women campaign as one of ten inspiring influencers including Jessica Chastain, Olivia Palermo and Shiva Safai. So, what are her secrets to staying relevant and loved over a 10-year period, in what can be such a fickle industry?
“It depends on how creative you are and how impressive in terms of your music, your style and the way you manage your social-media platforms,” she explains honestly. “You have to maintain the same style of music which your audience likes, but with different rhythms, new sounds – and a new style of singing is definitely helpful.”
And she should know, as one of just a handful of women in the world that can engage a pop audience as much as she can an opera one – so much so, that she graced the stage with the great Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli in 2016. “I’m a person who loves to change, and being able to perform in two different facets has made me,” admits Balqees. “You don’t find that every day. You don’t really see a star combining two styles of music that are so totally different from each other.”
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And singing is in her genes, born in the UAE to Yemeni parents, her father is musician Ahmed Fathi, the man she credits for teaching her to stay humble and giving her lessons on how not to be a diva, something he saw a lot of during his own time in the industry.
“My father was always telling me that you should be genuine, you should have self-respect, and to always be on time! So that you don’t waste your time because it’s precious, and others’ [time is] too.”
And it’s this attitude, her ability to transform and a hefty dose of talent that has helped Balqees reach audiences that span from Morocco to Lebanon and beyond. But she also credits knowledge; specifically her degree in marketing and then a masters in strategic marketing. “That actually helped in paving the way for the music industry, because I believe that our field needs lots of marketing work.” And it was shortly after finishing her studies that she exploded onto the music scene and started her decade-long journey.
“The past ten years were quite amazing because I learned so many things in the professional field of music, and even on a personal level,” says Balqees. “It’s actually helped to sculpt my personality; it was a transition from someone who was just a university student, or somebody who goes to work in the office every day, and then all of a sudden, all this changed and I was held responsible for music productions and facing vast numbers in an audience on a stage. This all actually helped in transforming my personality from this little girl to this responsible woman.”
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Balqees, who married Saudi Arabian businessman Sultan Bin Abdullatif in 2016, adds: “Aside from my marriage and my baby boy, I think I’m more patient, more mature and probably a good decision maker. And I’ve been through lots of obstacles: the musical field isn’t easy at all.”
She divulges some of her biggest challenges: “The ability to keep the balance between your personal life and as a public figure,” she reveals. “What to communicate to the audience, what not to communicate, how to be a good role model, how to convey messages in the best possible means… I think that’s a challenge with social media.”
But Balqees recognises that the level of reach she has across these platforms; over 10 million Instagram followers, 1.25 million YouTube subscribers with some videos receiving over 30 million views – does force the job of ‘role model’ on her. “It’s a big responsibility on how people perceive and respect the image that I helped create over the past 10 years,” she says. “And I really would love to maintain and sustain that image in the eyes of the audience by not letting them down, by just being myself. They love how genuine Balqees is, they love how true and faithful Balqees is on stage, off stage and how dedicated and devoted Balqees is when it comes to [putting] her family first and then her music. I really wish to sustain that.”
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When it comes to her own role models, first and foremost is legendary Lebanese singer Fairuz. “She is an icon. Her music was out of this world,” gushes Balqees. “She was able to create a musical style that actually has lasted until now, and it will last forever. She’s such a great musician, I respect the way she communicated music to the audience on stage and off stage.”
We discuss more modern acts she sees as icons, she gives an obvious first choice of Michael Jackson and then, more surprising, she mentions K-pop stars, BTS. “If you look at this era, K-pop is emerging big time and is having huge success with bands like BTS or Blackpink,” she explains. “Their charity work, their amazing trips, they’re icons in the eyes of the current generation, and probably in the upcoming ones. So yes, I mean each era has its own good icons.”
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But we shouldn’t be too surprised, Balqees is a woman with her finger on the pulse. It’s one of the reasons behind the longevity of her career. She is influenced by everything from opera, jazz and hip hop or, at the moment, “I’m into reggae and African beats” – a sound that she incorporated meticulously into her summer hit La Vie is Good.
When it comes to Western influence in general, Balqees believes the tables are starting to turn, as Western artists begin to sample Arabic music. “The fact that I hear Arab instrumentals nowadays in Western music means that people in these markets do listen to us as much as we listen to them,” she observes. “And actually, we get inspired from each other. With social media, I believe that music has been [able] to travel around the world, but what we’re missing and need more of are international Arab stars who can actually flourish in the West, and in the [rest of the] world. It would definitely help our music to reach out.”
Which is something Balqees is trying to do with her own music. “In terms of the opera specifically, I would love to reach [a wider audience]. I sing it in Italian, French, German, although German is really hard. Probably some Russian, too.”
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Perfecting her Italian is her new year’s resolution, which shows again that Balqees is a woman that never stops learning, evolving and trying to stay a step ahead. Doesn’t it feel like hard work sometimes? “The minute I feel like I can’t be creative anymore, or my creativity stops, or [I lose] the ability to change and adapt to the new styles of the new generation, I think that’s the time I’ll decide to stop,” she says honestly. “Doing collaborations, changing the style of music, adapting to the changes in the music industry, and the taste and preferences of the audience helps you to maintain your career. The minute this stops, I believe, I should stop. Literally stop.”
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But she has no plans to stop any time soon. In fact, 2021 could be her biggest year yet: hot on the heels of stunning Christmas and New Year’s Eve performances in the UAE, comes the release of her latest beauty product: an eyeliner from her BEX Beauty brand and a new single. The new music is part of a unique campaign to release a fresh single (with accompanying video) every month this year, most of the songs being written and recorded during lockdown from a makeshift home studio.
“COVID was a good test; sometimes when you’re outside your comfort zone, it helps you to come up with some new ideas,” she recalls. “It helped me a lot in terms of musical creativity, coming up with new melodies, new tunes, new styles of singing. I recorded these songs in my bedroom, which is a little bit awkward, but the acoustics were amazing.”
And Balqees has tackled some difficult topics in her new music, with one song covering her friend’s cancer. “I need inspiration, and people’s stories are very inspiring. For you to be creative, you need to actually further understand the market needs, and the market needs in the music industry are all about people and their lives.”
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And this leads her back to female empowerment. Balqees was named as a UN Champion for Women’s Rights in the Middle East in 2016, and is also a supporter of Refuge’s Don’t Cover It Up campaign against domestic violence. “Woman empowerment is at the top of my priorities, and I have worked on several [public] initiatives but also helped several cases under the table, not in front of the media,” she reveals. “To help women who are suffering from violence and domestic violence in their houses, from their husbands, brothers and [others], I really tried to support them financially, to [give them] independence, to start their careers and then truly thrive.”
Women’s education is another key topic on her radar, “Today, I have more than 50 students who actually graduated when I covered their educational expenses in different countries of the Arab world.” But she believes a lot more work needs doing. “Some Arab countries still don’t have sufficient laws that protect women, that stop women having their rights violated, and that [tackle] gender bias.”
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At her core, Balqees is a woman who understands other women. Whether their lives are a world away from hers, like many of her music fans or the women who need her financial or empowerment support, or women who, like her, are simply looking for beauty solutions: she’s mindful of all their needs. “Beauty is all about the happiness inside that will reflect on the outside,” she concludes. “And if you’re not happy, if you’re not confident, then it definitely will reflect in your personality and the way you look. Thanks to the awareness campaigns that we have nowadays, you [can more easily embrace] all the changes that affect you: during motherhood, pregnancy, delivery, postpartum, and then getting older.”
And it’s this time and care into assessing what others want and indeed need that will no doubt see Balqees succeed for another ten, twenty years, or, like her idol Fairuz, keep producing music that will live on forever.
From the January 2021 Issue of Harper’s Bazaar Arabia
Photography by Jvdas Berra
Styling by MA Consultancy
Editor in Chief: Olivia Phillips
Fashion Director: Anna Castan
Art Director: Oscar Yáñez
Hair: La Loge
Photography Assistant: Jaypee Hardin at 8th Street Studios
Styling Assistants: Ayesha Mazher and Amanda Allison
Producer: Aamar Shawwa. With thanks to Bab Al Shams