منذ 7 سنوات In a news story circulated by Arabic media websites and according to The World Music Awards (WMA’s), Elissa was The Most Viewed Arab Artist on YouTube in 2016. She bested our Icon Fairuz, who missed first place by 200k video views. Elissa totaled more than 1.4 billion video views while Fairuz totaled more than 1.2 billion video views.
Seems credible, right? Well, the question to be asked is: How did The World Music Awards come to this conclusion?
Everyone knows that Fairuz does not have a YouTube channel nor does she manage or upload her own digital work online. In fact, the few Fairuz songs that are available online today are not organized under one channel (on YouTube) and cannot be found on any specific platform. Moreover, we all know that there was a huge legal fight over the rights to the Rahbani works of the four legends; Fairuz, Assi, Mansour, and Ziad. Their work cannot be legally used by anyone especially after problems escalated to the extent that Mansour’s children attempted to have Fairuz arrested in Sharjah – UAE upon her arrival there for a concert (they wanted to prevent her from performing). They then suspended her Musical Play at Casino Du Liban and went on to prevent Fairuz from performing for almost three years, until popular protests were held in cities all over the Arab world, even overseas (Beirut, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Sydney).
I mention this in order to refresh their dubious memory and to point out that Fairuz’s music gets uploaded to YouTube by multiple fans and after reaching a certain number of views, it gets removed. Only to be uploaded again by other fans. These are video views that cannot be accounted for in the WMA’s statistics.
If this foreign entity does not know about our shameful situation, we do know how things went mad around here and it’s no secret. Fairuz kept this secret to herself only for us to find out and stand up for her; we blew the case wide open along with Al Hayat Newspaper on the same day, while the remaining media (small and large), covered this situation for weeks thereafter until Fairuz announced her comeback to the stage with two concerts in Biel in October of 2010. However, she never reclaimed her digital rights and sued The Sacem Association while conflict persisted with her brother-in-law’s children, the late Mansour Al-Rahbani.
Fairuz is still not in control of her digital music and they’ve barely quit harassing her and attempting to prevent her from performing. Fairuz’s songs usually do not last longer than a few weeks online before being removed and uploaded again by other fans. This war on Fairuz started years ago and she’s been getting harassed since 1984, if not before. As long as she is unable to fight back and is incapable of protecting her rights, how could we really know the true numbers of her digital presence?
We do not blame these Westerners because they simply don’t know better. They decide our fate. They are the ones that determine statistics; blind our hearts and minds which is how Fairuz ended up on this list.
We are the best at spoiling our own pioneers and icons so how could we blame them?
Congratulations to Elissa who bested all Arab artists and congratulations to our icon Fairuz. Despite all the abuse she’s experienced and despite all the omissions of her digital footprint, she was still able to garner 1.2 billion video views. Could you imagine what the numbers would have been if she had her own YouTube channel?
The announced results were for 2016… Did Fairuz present any new music in 2016?
Despite her absence, Fairuz’s silence can still be heard by billions.
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