[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Re: [preguntas]
Singer Ofra Haza Dies at 41
The Associated
Press
Feb 23 2000
5:36PM ET
JERUSALEM (AP) -
Ofra Haza, who melded ancient Yemenite Jewish devotional
poetry with
1980s techno music to become Israel's first international pop music
success,
died Wednesday.
She was 41.
Haza, who was
admitted to Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv 13 days ago, died of
massive organ
failure, Dr. Zeev Rortenstein said. He refused to say why she was
hospitalized or
what led to the organ failure, saying that was her wish.
Haza, the
youngest of nine siblings in a Yemenite Jewish family who lived in the
Hatikvah slum of
Tel Aviv, was discovered at age 12 by a talent scout. She attributed her
full-throated
voice to singing at home with her mother. By the time she was 19, she was
a bubble gum pop
success.
``She was
Israel's first female pop idol,'' said Benny Dudkevitch, Israel radio's
pop
music editor.
Her signature
song was the defiant 1979 hit, ``The Tart's Song,'' a celebration of being
everything -
funny, flirtatious, consumerist - a young woman of the time was not
supposed to be,
with the chorus declaring, ``I wanna shout out loud, `I'm a tart!'''
Later in her
career, Haza was among the artists who distanced themselves from efforts
to
consolidate an
``Israeli'' sound and delved into their parents' ethnic roots.
``Yemenite
Songs,'' released in 1985 with a photo of her in full Yemenite wedding
gear
on the cover,
was an instant Israeli hit.
Its signature
track, ``Im Ninalu,'' (``If the Gates of Heaven were Locked'') expanded a
devotional poem
by 17th century rabbi Shalom Shabazi into a modern love song. The
melody was pure
Persian Gulf, a climactic assemblage of rising quarter tones; the beat
was pure 1980s
drum machine.
But it was not
until 1988, when American rap artists Eric B. and Rakim sampled ``Im
Ninalu'' on
their dance hit ``Paid in Full,'' that Haza became an international
phenomenon.
A savvy
self-promoter, she rereleased ``Im Ninalu'' worldwide with English
lyrics. It
was an
outstanding success.
The rerelease of
``Yemenite Songs,'' and her next album, ``Shaday,'' brought her
worldwide
attention - suddenly Ofra Haza was the byword for world music. Reviewers
would describe
other ethnic music phenomenons as ``the Bulgarian Ofra Haza'' or ``the
Indian Ofra
Haza.''
``For audiences
in Europe and the Far East, this was something completely new,''
Dudkevitch said.
``In Germany alone, it was selling 15,000 copies a day.''
Haza's
insistence on privacy only stoked the Israeli public's interest in her
life. She
made headlines
in 1987 when she survived a small airplane crash. She kept her marriage
two years ago to
businessman Doron Ashkenazi out of the public eye.
After a flush of
attention that lasted into the early 1990s, her fame receded, although she
continued to
make high-profile appearances. She performed in Oslo when Prime
Minister Yitzhak
Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat won the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, and she sang the role of Moses' mother in the
1998 film ``The
Prince of Egypt.''
In Haza's last
days, fans gathered at the hospital, anxious for word of her recovery.
After her death
was announced, Israeli radio stations switched to retrospectives of her
music.
Prime Minister
Ehud Barak said she represented the Israeli success story.
``Ofra emerged
from the Hatikvah slums to reach the peak of Israeli culture,'' he said.
``She has left a
mark on us all.''
There was no
word on funeral arrangements, or information about survivors other than
her husband.
APO/Obit-Haza/
Copyright (C)
2000 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report
may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior
written
authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinkshave been
inserted by
AOL.com.
---------------
Unsubscribe by going to http://www.actwin.com/MediaNation/OtR/