Dubai-based Saudi singer DD Foxx is making a comeback this year. The 29-year-old is gearing up to release her second album, yet to be titled, following a 2012 debut record, Had to Be Me.
This month, she’ll release the lead single: Crazy World. The song is an unexpected collaboration between Foxx and Emirati singer Abdullah Bel Khair, 65. The two joined forces after a chance meeting at a recording studio.
“He loved it. He was very open to it. He’s also the kind of person who loves trying new things, so for him, this was something new, this was something fresh and different. It was magical,” said Foxx.
Foxx started working on the song a couple of years ago, but felt something missing and shelved it until Bel Khair entered the picture. It will be the only bilingual song on her otherwise English, pop-R&B album.
“Basically, what inspired me to start writing Crazy World — or what triggered me, you can say — is all the tragedies that we see happening in our world, and all the destruction in the world, societies, people hungry, children dying, people homeless, families losing their houses, poverty, discrimination, racism, conflict of religion. I mean, the list goes on,” said Foxx.
“What if it was me who lost their house? Me and my family, and I have nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat, I’m out in the streets? I’m blessed that I have a home, that I have a pillow, that I have a blanket to cover me, especially now that it’s cold. If you think for a few seconds you were [in that situation], what could you do? You’d feel helpless, right?”
Foxx began her journey in the music industry when she moved to the UAE in 2000, after her high school music teacher noticed something special about her.
“I didn’t grow up listening to music, as I lived in Saudi Arabia... My first tape that was given to me by my dad was Madonna, and then afterwards, when I moved here, I was listening to different music — Bryan Adams, the Cranberries, Mary J Blige, Alicia Keys — so it was a mixture of things. I guess that’s what makes [my] style a little bit different.”
Currently, she has recorded nearly 200 songs for her upcoming album, which she will have to whittle down to 10 or 15. Despite being more exposed to Arabic music in her early years, she felt it organic to sing English.
“You don’t decide, it just comes out naturally. You don’t decide ‘I want to paint’, or ‘I want to do this painting’, you find yourself doing it without knowing and it just grows within you,” she said.
The music video for Crazy World will be filmed this month in the UAE, and the song will become available on iTunes shortly.
“It’s going to portray simplicity, and briefly, what’s happening, in a very simple yet touching manner. Me and Abdullah are going to be ourselves — you’re going to see the simple us, just giving it our best out there,” said Foxx.
‘Simple’ means no flashy shots at the Burj Al Arab?
“It’s not a city film,” Foxx said. “It’s going to be something different.”
*For more, check out ddfoxx.com.