She was born in Sweden, but the Moroccan heritage has influenced her in everything she does. We followed the artist Loreen to the magical fashion city of Marrakech.
I am a serious person. Which also stands in my zodiac sign, says Loreen. The tone is playful but between the lines there is a seriousness. Loreen, waving in the astrological system and musician by profession, is after a year of hard work done with her latest album. The album she literally put her heart and soul into. Music, she says, holds like life so many different dimensions and to find meaning in it, she needs to go in depth. To just show off a “pleasant voice,” she says, becomes flat and uninteresting.
– I love the sound, twisting and turning on the toner. On this album, I have experimented more with voice than before. For example, I tried to sing so ugly I could that I could find it beautiful. There is something spiritual in how the different frequencies trigger different emotions in different people, says Loreen.
Although Loreen herself was born in Sweden, the Moroccan heritage has influenced her greatly. Her approach to music, she says, is a part of her Berber descent. Through the years there have also been many trips to Morocco.
– It comes up a lot in my singing, how I relate to my origin. The Berbers are indigenous people and the reverence they have for “mother earth” I’ve inherited and brought with me in the music. The sounds I use are often taken from nature. Even her “diverse” temperament tracks her to the Berber relatives. Perhaps, speculates Loreen, the emotional commuting also part of her “balancebehavior”.
– I’m good at identifying lawsuits, to show respect and make others feel comfortable. What is needed in my industry where people may be pathologically self-centered. That does not mean, I do not fight for my vision and sometimes can be quite ego. But we must not forget to be humble at the same time.
The trick to help herself but at the same time show respect Loreen has been training on in her childhood. Growing up with a single mother in a family of seven – in which Loreen was the oldest – meant that the children had to learn to take care of each other early on. That they were so many, however thought Loreen herself, it is not so remarkable – at least not in the Berber measurement results.
– When the whole family visited the mother’s little village, our relatives could laugh at my mom and say “only seven children?”. And then they complained that we were too thin, though we are all quite normal built. But obesity is a sign of prosperity in Morocco. Well they were worried that we were hard up, ha ha.
To Morocco Loreen returns regularly and Marrakech she describes as a bit of a Moroccan Hollywood: mysterious and glamorous and like something straight out of a “Thousand and One Nights”-saga.
– The city center is really lovely, but you have to go on a desert excursion. To travel with Bedouins through the desert, and at night pitch tents in the middle of nowhere. Then you are under the stars and listening to the silence. Magical!
Like the Bedouins are, Loreen is herself a bit of a nomad. Although she lives in Stockholm, she feels at home in many places in the world. In Paris, New York and London, she has many friends that she likes to spend time with.
– I like simply to move around, and I become restless if I’m in the same place for too long.
What about you and fashion interest, what do you like yourself for style?
– Fashion is a great fun and the clothes are real tool that express yourself through. They are like a packaging of the soul. Hats and masculine coats and jackets, preferably in a little “old-man” look, such Loreen starts at the moment. Regarding a style icon she says after a few seconds of thinking: “Early Grace Jones.”
– I’m very into things that are graphical. Straight lines and angles, orderliness as well. I guess it’s because I have it a little messy in my head right now, there is a lot going on there.
“As the creator, there’s so much going on in your head and you must have the things around to be quite classy”
LOREEN TALHAOUI
• Occupation: Musician and singer.
• Age: 31.
• Lives: Mostly Stockholm, but plan shortly moving to New York.
• Background: Participated in Idol 2004, won the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Euphoria in 2012.
• Current: As Ellos Model and with the newly released single Paper Light. Album is coming out later this year.
“There is so much pressure to behave in a certain way. Therefore, I think being yourself is very cool.”
• Original link: http://www.ellos.se/inspiration/loreen/766?intcmp=ES_1518_ellostab_destination_sommar_mode_cta_mlmh
• Translation: Via Google Translate
• Photogallery: http://gallery.lovely-loreen.com/thumbnails.php?album=475