welcome to hardtalk. i'm sarah montague. my guest today is a singer—songwriter who was propelled to global fame when her protest song, kelmti horra, became the anthem of the arab spring more than a decade ago. emel mathlouthi combines the traditions of her native tunisia with western influences to create compelling and original music that addresses themes such as identity and justice, as well as freedom. she's just released a new album featuring an all—female line—up of musicians and producers. she feels a responsibility to use her music to shake people, but resists being called political. so what drives her

creative vision? emel mathlouthi, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. now, you have had phenomenal success around the world since the arab spring, which propelled you to global fame. what is it now that still drives you to want to shake people? so many things. i guess, first of all, my passion for people and music and connecting. i feel that nowadays,

more than ever, we need to connect with each other, and i feel that if we have this sense of union and empathy towards each other, i feel that the world could be a much better place. well, let's go back to 2010, 2011, and at that time your music was banned in tunisia. you were on avenue habib bourguiba in tunis, you were surrounded by crowds who were all chanting and then this happened. she sings in arabic. we are seeing you there, singing, with a candle lit in front of you, and to the crowds.

when you watch it, how do you feel about that moment now? i've always felt, um, kind of distant because ijust...me, i just remember the tension, and ijust remember that it wasn't all friendly around me, actually. they didn't really want music there. so it was like a good mix of informations and emotions, which makes it really interesting, which is also very much what was happening at that moment. um... you were nervous? i was very nervous, yes. i'm very shy, in fact. but more than that, you were saying people didn't want music. your music was banned at the time. were you nervous about what would happen to you? i wasn't nervous about what would happen to me. i don't think i've ever been nervous about what

would happen to me. but i feel that when you start singing, you bring something that's completely different and very, very fragile, and i think that's what i was nervous about — how it would be received. and i...obviously, i was completely taken by surprise to know, like, a couple of days later that it became viral. and in a way, ifeel very proud of that moment because music wins, you know? and to see... in my country, we don't really have the tradition to have music lead very important political and social movements. so it was kind of a beautiful, symbolic moment. so it was, what, a couple of days later, you realised that it was...it had gone viral? yeah. i mean, my sister, she texted me, she was like, "oh, my god," you know, "the video is going viral.

the song is going viral." and i think i've always... i've secretly always hoped for that song... i mean, when i wrote it, ifelt that it was very powerful. it was a song that was supposed to draw crowds together. i've always heard it with big choir, big orchestra. i've always felt that this song was really big. i didn't know it was going to become an anthem, but i think... and we should explain the words. "i'm the voice of the uprisers. i'm the right of the oppressed. they took away our rights and shut the door on us. what are they thinking? we are not afraid." so it very much spoke to the moment. it spoke to the moment. and what's even more interesting is that it was kind of a prophecy, because the song was written in 2007, so it was a few years before the revolution, and it was already talking about the red rose that was set on fire and that went out on the streets calling for the free... to free her.

so it's literally what happened a few years later. and the lyrics are by amine al—ghozzi, and i wrote the music. and when it took off, what did you think? what did you think would happen to the song, to you? i think i felt a sense of that my utopia was kind of becoming reality. and the utopia is to see a revolution happening during my lifetime, and to see one of my songs walk hand in hand and give people what i was hoping it would give people, actually — strength and hope and encourage them to just defend their opinions and the way they want to see their future. and it travelled. i mean, it travelled and became important to so many people. and then it started travelling to egypt and then to syria and then all over the world.

there was a moment i was really receiving messages from literally every country in the world. now, it's a time of change obviously in tunisia, did you think of staying there because you had been living overseas? did you think, actually, i could stay here? i think, in a way, after leaving tunisia, i've always kept a very strong link and connection because i started feeling an even stronger sense of responsibility towards the people that i left behind, that were in prison, that were being tortured, that were suffering, that were still trying to push forfreedom. so i thought that it totally made sense for me to be outside so i could carry my voice as broad as possible for the cause. right. so what? so there wasn't a moment where you thought, "i'll stay"? you left. i never thought exactly that i left. i thought that i... i was serving the purpose in a friendlier environment. so it was going to work

much better to spread the message than if i stayed. and i don't think i've thought about going back to tunisia, like, literally to live there, because i was also... i was very satisfied of the way my artistic life was going. i was very interested in being in the centre of the world and being in connection with different musics, with different audiences, while still being profoundly tunisian. mm. did you also want to shake the label that in a way applied to you, because your music since has changed? well, it's constantly changing, but you do seem to be wanting to move away from the idea of being a protest singer. well, so, for someone like me, and there's many people like me, i'm born and raised in tunisia, so i'm arab—african, and i've always felt that... ..as soon as i travelled,

and i started a career in the western countries, i felt that i was kind of being stripped of the many layers that composed me. so, yes, at first i kind of built a rejection against like protest, because i felt that i was only being seen through one lens and one lens only, which was. . .whether exotic or political. and ijust... ijust wanted to refuse that. but eventually i came to recognise that, actually, the problem is that me, i'm completely political. i'm a protest voice and singer, but i'm also a pioneer in music—making, in composing and... ..i just had to be proud with every bit of layer that i have inside of me. i'm notjust one. i can't be defined throughjust one lens. well, let's fast—forward. so ten years from the moment

that you became hugely famous to lockdown. and again, you're back in tunisia and you record this. she sings in arabic. now, that is a video that has been seen millions of times, isn't it?

i mean, what are we talking? 17,18 million times? why did that catch fire? i don't know. honestly, this was such a strange moment during covid. erm... you're on yourfamily�*s rooftop, ithink, there. i'm on my family's rooftop, and i took my phone and i wanted to film this. i recorded it and i sang it on live streams, and i felt that there was something going on with it. and i thought, "0k, let me film it." so ijust went on a rooftop. i had, like, ten minutes before sunset and i just had, like, two takes. and the second one, luckily, was the good one. i was just operating everything, my computer, my phone, and then i posted it. ijust added a black and white filter and ijust posted it, and i was blown away with the reaction of people. and this is another moment that, you know, another moment

where our music wins. because the world was going through such a crazy time. and, yes, people needed music and there was a lot of musicians doing awesome things. but i feel that, yeah, anything that can speak from the heart, you know? and this was called holm, a dream. "if i could close my eyes and the dreams take me by the hand, i would rise and fly in a new sky. and i'll forget my sorrows." yeah. so, basically, there's a dark part of the song which talks about people whose futures are darkened by struggle, and how life crushes us and crushes, you know, you have these huge walls of tyranny that, um, you know, destroy all of our hopes. and then i go back in the chorus and ijust start, you know, wishing and hoping and dreaming — if i could even

travel in my imagination, i could build palaces and nights where hopes and love can grow. so while i'm descripting the dark, parts that we're seeing in the violence and all of that, at the same time, i'm leaving a glimpse of light for us to maybe change things if we can. so it is all still political? emel laughs. pretty much. i mean, what i have to say is that we cannot do something that's not political, because political is basically, if we care, we have to care. we have to care about everything. and if we care, we are political because political is actually us. but we've had two songs there which have had a profound effect in terms of their reach on people. do you think they change things? well, when i see what happened in tunisia and when i see what is happening now,

when i see people's reaction during concerts and when i see what happened during covid, where we all turned back to the essentials, which are us, ourfamilies, our human connections, our emotions. yes, i truly believe that music can change things because music comes from the heart, comes from the soul, and itjust speaks to the heart and speaks to the soul in ways that nothing else can compare. so, yeah, i believe that. but when you look, for example, at the arab spring and what came of it, how does it make you feel about what your hopes were then? and what difference the song made? i tend to always want to be optimistic and hopeful because i have to be. as long as we're alive, and as long as i have a voice i have to keep pushing against...

..what�*s wrong and what's going wrong. but i think a lot of also beautiful things happened. isee... what i have the most hope in is the future generations. when i see 15—year—olds singing my songs and speak in so many different languages and speaking their minds and going on the streets to protest any time they're not happy, it's a different generation than mine. we were much more scared than this. so i still have hope. but i mean, probably, you know, this is how life is supposed to be. there's the villains, and the villains put the good people behind bars and put ideas behind bars, and they're scared of songs and ideas and words. but there's still more of us, and i hope, more and more. soumaya ghannoushi,

british—tunisian writer, the daughter of rached ghannouchi, has said that tunisia has turned from a fragile democracy into a country resembling a full fledged dictatorship, a cocktail of failures robbed of its hard—won freedoms. is that how you feel? well, it's kind of true. she laughs. it is, it is true. i've experienced it myself. erm... in what way? what do you mean when you say that? well, i don't think that i've gained... i mean, i know there's a lot of people that support me and want to see me in tunisia perform, but, unfortunately, it's still quite hard for me to perform in tunisia. and after all these years, erm, i eventually had to realise that it's notjust by bad luck. so... why? what happens? why is it hard?

if you wanted... if you wanted to go and sing there. i mean, there's still private things i could do, but what i'm talking about is just the festivals. because in tunisia, most of the cultural things depend on the government and the ministry. and there's a lot of festivals and a lot of cultural institutions, but unfortunately it's very hard for me to be part of them. let's turn to your latest album, which...it�*s a play on the arabic word for woman — mra. yes. and what you've done with it is to only use women, notjust the singing on it, making the music on it, but the technicians and the engineers. how hard was it to find only women? it was hard. i remember, well, it took me some time to find my first

co—producer, and then it took me a lot of time to find my final overall co—producer. and i remember we had moments where we... ..she was like, "are you sure we can't cheat? i have my guy who can do this, you know, in two seconds." and i was like, "no, we can't cheat." you know, we have to... and this is why i'm doing this. so every step of the way, i felt even, the harder it got, the more secure and assured that i was doing the right thing, i felt. because we have, you know, in the music industry, like the numbers and the statistics, they speak for themselves. and we have, like, the circles where people keep working with the same producers, with the same, you know, and we have to break that circle and we have to push women, because women, a lot of women, are not visible. and. . .you know.

well, let's hear a track from it called nar. she sings in arabic. # i am a soldier. # i am a fighter. # i am a bullet... she sings in arabic. # sharp like a razor. # i'm a danger. # i am a leader. # i am a dancer. # fierce like a fire. # i am a bullet. # i am the best. # i have a quest. # my blood is freedom... she sings in arabic. was it different, only being made by women? frankly, um, this is the thing that i didn't really think about. but every studio session felt really strong and special, and we all felt what we were there for. we all felt what it's about. and we didn't even need to speak.

and there were tears, there were a lot of emotions. and what i was the most excited about is that i felt that i was encouraged and uplifted in ways i haven't been before. and i love all my male collaborators, and i love all the works that i've done before on my previous albums. but this time was special, like, the interactions, the interactivity, the... i don't know. i loved the energy, it felt really like... i really understood the meaning of sorority. 0k. but in order to get all these women, you had to perhaps reach to different places around the world than you would have done otherwise. is that right? yes. so the girls like to say this is the united colours of emel. because it was so much more international and it had to be. well, eventually it did become like a very social, political, sociopolitical experience because i realised that, why don't i invite other

artists to feature with me, not just producers and technicians? and then as i started reaching out, i discovered rappers and i realised that, you know, if female producers have it harder, female rappers have it even harder and harder, and brown and black female rappers even more, and trans artists and producers even more. and i realised that i had a much bigger responsibility. i had to really bring all the invisible and, you know, and go, like, down the ladder. and it was... it became really fun because i'm a huge fan of hip—hop. and all of a sudden i was like, why don't i collaborate with a malian rapper? and we have this invisible frontier between north africa and the rest of africa, which, you know, is some kind... like, we're a lighter colour but we're all africans.

and i don't think i've really seen collaboration between arab—speaking north africans and other african artists. and i really like that. i really like to put myself in challenges like this and to show that, you know, we're not different. connecting through music and building bridges through music. same withjustina, who is an iranian rapper, because i don't think i've seen collaborations between arab artists and iranian artists, for example. so i started like, you know, making all these bridges and trying to delete. so, i mean, we've talked about protest, we've talked about identity, the different genres of music, what next, then? after this album? yeah. ah, there's so much more. i mean, i want to dig even more into, erm, film scoring, for example, which is also pretty much male driven. but always something new? there's. . .there�*s. .. that's what's exciting about music. you're so ambitious

and you say you're optimistic, but i want to go back to sort of in a way where it started, which was with the arab spring. do you have any hope that there will be any change? well, i guess, you know, it wasn't supposed to be easy. it wasn't supposed to come right away. we've won a lot of things, we have accomplished a lot of things, but we've gone backwards somehow. and i think there's a lot of powers that are driving against us, against the people. but we're still here. we're still powerful. and i'm very proud of the new generations, as i was saying, and a lot of things, a lot of people are doing amazing things, and we just have to keep looking to the light and just not give up, and just keep rising. emel mathlouthi, thank you for coming on hardtalk. thank you.

hello. this long—range forecast takes us into the start ofjune, and there is some dry weather on the way, but notjust yet. the final few days of may will bring further heavy, thundery downpours, albeit with some spells of sunshine in—between, so it's not going to be a complete wash—out, just a rather mixed weather story underneath this area of low pressure. that low�*s certainly with us throughout wednesday, driving some pretty hefty showers. so, most places getting off to a mainly dry start, but those showers developing as the day wears on, and as we get into the afternoon, we will see some heavy,

thundery ones, particularly across some northern, eastern and central parts of scotland and perhaps down into north—east england, as well, the sort of showers that could deliver a lot of rain in a short space of time, with thunder and lightning, maybe some hail thrown in for good measure. not as many showers further south, and, actually, in the best of the sunshine, feeling relatively warm, at 20 or possibly 21 degrees. now, this area of low pressure�*s still fairly close by as we head on into thursday, but i think the focus for the heaviest showers will shift a little bit further southwards, so as we get into thursday afternoon, the greatest chance of showers and thunderstorms across southern and south—eastern parts of england. further north and west, not as many showers, more dry weather, some spells of sunshine, but quite a brisk north— or north—westerly flow, so that will keep things feeling relatively cool in some places. now, into friday, we will see quite a lot of cloud, i think, spilling across the south and the east of england. still the chance of some showers, also an area of cloud into northern scotland.

but in—between, a fair amount of sunshine and, actually, more in the way of dry weather overall as we end the week. and that sets us up for the weekend, because this area of high pressure is going to start to extend its influence towards our shores. now, there are some big areas of cloud to come around this high. the winds around high pressure flow in this clockwise direction, taking areas of cloud, pushing them across the uk, so we could see some fairly cloudy skies down towards the south and the east on saturday, perhaps up towards the north—west of scotland, as well. but in—between, where we get some sunshine, temperatures are likely to get into the high teens or low twenties celsius, and our area of high pressure will still be with us as we get into sunday, centred to the west of the uk. and it looks like, around the top of this high, we mayjust see this zone of rather warm air working its way in, particularly towards northern and north—western parts of the uk, so that could well be where we see some of the highest of the temperatures on sunday. some areas of cloud, but some spells of sunshine, but a chance that across, say, some central and eastern parts of scotland, we could get

to 22 or 23 degrees. but even further south, high teens, low twenties celsius, feeling pleasant where you get sunshine. so, how long will that drier weather last? as we head through next week, it looks like the jet stream, which will have been running to the north of us, allowing that high pressure to sit in place, it looks like thejet will then dig southwards again, and that may bring an area of low pressure southwards, as well, bringing the increasing chance of showers. and this weather set—up, with high pressure to the west of us and low pressure to the east, will bring a north— or north—westerly wind, and so that is not going to feel particularly warm. no sign of any real heatwave into the start ofjune. a decent amount of dry weatherfor a time, just the increasing chance of showers later next week. that's all from me. bye— bye.

live from london,

this is bbc news. calls for a ceasefire. algeria drafts a un resolution, demanding an end to the killing in rafah in southern gaza. the political future of the veteran mp diane abbott remains uncertain after she was reinstated to the labour party. 28 million voters head to the polls today in south africa for a general election which could see the governing anc lose its majority in parliament. and donald trump's hush—money trial edges closer to its conclusion, as the prosecution and defence wrap up their closing arguments. hello, i'm mark lobel. algeria has said it will present a draft un resolution to stop the killing in rafah in southern gaza.

the move was announced after a closed meeting