The Voice of Ya Habibi: The Story of a Song - Hela Melki

Hela Melki (right) sings while Tiffany Hanan Madera dances across the stage (left.)

Hela Melki (b.October 20th,1981) is a Tunisian born singer. She is known in the Arabic Music Community for many cover songs by famous classic singers such as Ismahan, Warda Al Jazairia , Om Kalthoum , Farid El Atrash , Abdelhalim Hafiz and Mohamad Abdelwahab. She grew up in a family listening to all kinds of Classic Arabic and Western music as well.

At a very young age, Hela showed exceptional singing talent and was influenced by her father, a keyboard player and a Singer who was known singing in English and French language. She used to attend most of her father’s band rehearsals, in which Western tunes were mostly played at the time.Hela began singing while she was in primary school (1987) and then she joined the high school musical team (1993) and sang throughout the whole scholarship. She was able after her graduation to participate in a lot of Local, National and Regional Music Competitions (1998/2001) , in which she had achieved all the top ranking positions.

Hela started following her own path by pursuing the dream of producing Original Songs in collaboration with famous composers and music arrangers. Hela’s Original debut song was ” Hokm Ezzaman” (2003) and in 2005 she released “Nghir Alik”. She has since performed live all over the Arab world as well as many performances throughout Europe. She was decorated the Medal of culture by the Minister of Culture in 2006. Hela was devoted to her musical career by highlighting her Tunisian identity and performing classical and contemporary genres of Arabic music.

At this point of her young career, the presence of this beautiful and powerful voice attracted several Tunisian composers and musicians until she got introduced in 2007 to one of the most respected names in music industry in Tunisia, Maestro “Abdelhakim Belgaied” with whom she recorded six songs  album ‘ Ghazelni ‘  released in 2009 . Long after, Hela collaborated this time with  the Kuwaiti composer Mohammed AlRowaished and she released her Single’ Andak Garh’  in 2014.

After a long eight years break, Hela made a comeback to the arena in 2018 through  MBC The Voice – Ahla Saut .  In a fierce competition, Hela was one of the four finalists that made it to the final show out of more than 100 participants. The show had been watched by Hundreds of Millions viewers throughout the Arab Nations and she has gained an outstanding attention and popularity among viewers all around the region and Worldwide. (source http://www.helamelki.com)