Dunya Yunis

Lebanese singer who appears on the LP “Music in a World of Islam, 1: The Human Voice”. Her voice was sampled by David Byrne and Brian Eno, MARRS, Yello and The Orb among others. Just a few years before a 15-year civil war plunged Beirut into absolute chaos, Lebanon’s capital was a hotspot for the Arab world’s golden age musicians, a sort of Paris for the Lost Generation. That era saw the birth and demise of the careers of many great artists, some of whom subsequently saw their name fade into oblivion. One woman, Dounia Younis, better known as the “Lebanese mountain singer” for music aficionados around the world, had a promising run in the 1960s and 1970s, singing with legends such as Zaki Nassif and Wadih El Safi. Dounia’s career ended abruptly as she had to choose between love and art, but her legacy lasted long after she stopped singing, and far beyond Lebanon and the Middle East. One recording was sampled years after by Brian Eno and David Byrne, a sample she heard for the first time some 40 years later. Dounia’s voice accidentally had an immense impact on the art of sampling, DJing and even hip-hop.