Yoga is serving as inspiration for Christina Aguilera’s upcoming album.
The pop star says that the physical and mental exercise is helping her find inner peace and influencing her music-making process.
“Taking a love for yoga and breathing ... not looking at it as an exercise, but just feeling more one with the Earth and everyone being connected, it’ll definitely have a reflection on the new record,” Aguilera said.
She has “loosely been working on my record for a couple years now,” even when pregnant with her now one year old daughter.
Regarding her life now, Aguilera states that: “it’s like really down to business and I’ve made a lot of headway and progress on the record, and you will see sort of the difference between this record and others in the past.”
The 34-year-old said she wants to release the follow up to 2012's Lotues next year.
"I am hoping for it to be next year and maybe around the time I return for (live episodes of) The Voice season 10," she said.
This month she is pre-taping the beginning of The Voice season 10 which will air next year. Season nine, with Gwen Stefani in Aguilera's chair, premièred last month.
Because two seasons of the show are taped simultaneously, Aguilera says she has had to take breaks from the Emmy-winning series.
“I absolutely need those breaks,” she said, laughing. “I will wholeheartedly, openly be honest about it and just say that. I think it’s a little easier for Blake (Shelton) and Adam (Levine) — the show has definitely catapulted their careers to new heights and it’s awesome — but they’re not parents yet. I love being a mom and I think life is all about balance and to me it’s really important to take time off from the show.”
“It also keeps things fresh,” she continued. “They pump it out twice a year so for me personally, I feel like I’m better at my position on the show and being a coach to people if I’m not juggling two teams at once while one season is being pre-taped and the other’s airing.”
Aguilera says she’s been keeping her big voice intact in between albums and tours. She also learnt to care less about being a technical singer and, instead, develop a “signature style.”
“Maybe when I was younger and very green to the business and just wanting to emulate my idols, I would try probably harder to cross T’s and dot I’s and hit certain notes,” she said. “But music is such an emotion to me and it’s so felt from the heart, that at this point in my life it’s really not about the image of a great singer, but the emotion of a great singer.”
artslife@thenational.ae
The five pillars of Islam
The five pillars of Islam
Company Profile
Company name: Cargoz
Date started: January 2022
Founders: Premlal Pullisserry and Lijo Antony
Based: Dubai
Number of staff: 30
Investment stage: Seed
SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
'Skin'
Dir: Guy Nattiv
Starring: Jamie Bell, Danielle McDonald, Bill Camp, Vera Farmiga
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
COMPANY PROFILE
Company: Eco Way
Started: December 2023
Founder: Ivan Kroshnyi
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Electric vehicles
Investors: Bootstrapped with undisclosed funding. Looking to raise funds from outside
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre, six-cylinder
Transmission: six-speed manual
Power: 395bhp
Torque: 420Nm
Price: from Dh321,200
On sale: now
The years Ramadan fell in May
Despacito's dominance in numbers
Released: 2017
Peak chart position: No.1 in more than 47 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Lebanon
Views: 5.3 billion on YouTube
Sales: With 10 million downloads in the US, Despacito became the first Latin single to receive Diamond sales certification
Streams: 1.3 billion combined audio and video by the end of 2017, making it the biggest digital hit of the year.
Awards: 17, including Record of the Year at last year’s prestigious Latin Grammy Awards, as well as five Billboard Music Awards
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Revibe
Started: 2022
Founders: Hamza Iraqui and Abdessamad Ben Zakour
Based: UAE
Industry: Refurbished electronics
Funds raised so far: $10m
Investors: Flat6Labs, Resonance and various others
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-finals, second leg:
Liverpool (0) v Barcelona (3), Tuesday, 11pm UAE
Game is on BeIN Sports
UFC FIGHT NIGHT: SAUDI ARABIA RESULTS
Main card
Middleweight:
Robert Whittaker defeated Ikram Aliskerov via knockout (Round 1)
Heavyweight:
Alexander Volkov def Sergei Pavlovich via unanimous decision
Middleweight:
Kelvin Gastelum def Daniel Rodriguez via unanimous decision
Middleweight:
Shara Magomedov def Antonio Trocoli via knockout (Round 3)
Light heavyweight:
Volkan Oezdemir def Johnny Walker via knockout (Round 1)
Preliminary Card
Lightweight:
Nasrat Haqparast def Jared Gordon via split decision
Featherweight:
Felipe Lima def Muhammad Naimov via submission (Round 3)
Welterweight:
Rinat Fakhretdinov defeats Nicolas Dalby via split decision
Bantamweight:
Muin Gafurov def Kang Kyung-ho via unanimous decision
Light heavyweight:
Magomed Gadzhiyasulov def Brendson Ribeiro via majority decision
Bantamweight:
Chang Ho Lee def Xiao Long via split decision
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Almouneer
Started: 2017
Founders: Dr Noha Khater and Rania Kadry
Based: Egypt
Number of staff: 120
Investment: Bootstrapped, with support from Insead and Egyptian government, seed round of
$3.6 million led by Global Ventures
The specs
Engine: 0.8-litre four cylinder
Power: 70bhp
Torque: 66Nm
Transmission: four-speed manual
Price: $1,075 new in 1967, now valued at $40,000
On sale: Models from 1966 to 1970
Company Profile
Name: HyveGeo
Started: 2023
Founders: Abdulaziz bin Redha, Dr Samsurin Welch, Eva Morales and Dr Harjit Singh
Based: Cambridge and Dubai
Number of employees: 8
Industry: Sustainability & Environment
Funding: $200,000 plus undisclosed grant
Investors: Venture capital and government
TWISTERS
Director:+Lee+Isaac+Chung
Starring:+Glen+Powell,+Daisy+Edgar-Jones,+Anthony+Ramos
Rating:+2.5/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: SmartCrowd
Started: 2018
Founder: Siddiq Farid and Musfique Ahmed
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech / PropTech
Initial investment: $650,000
Current number of staff: 35
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Various institutional investors and notable angel investors (500 MENA, Shurooq, Mada, Seedstar, Tricap)
‘FSO Safer’ - a ticking bomb
The Safer has been moored off the Yemeni coast of Ras Issa since 1988.
The Houthis have been blockading UN efforts to inspect and maintain the vessel since 2015, when the war between the group and the Yemen government, backed by the Saudi-led coalition began.
Since then, a handful of people acting as a skeleton crew, have performed rudimentary maintenance work to keep the Safer intact.
The Safer is connected to a pipeline from the oil-rich city of Marib, and was once a hub for the storage and export of crude oil.
The Safer’s environmental and humanitarian impact may extend well beyond Yemen, experts believe, into the surrounding waters of Saudi Arabia, Djibouti and Eritrea, impacting marine-life and vital infrastructure like desalination plans and fishing ports.