Erbil, Iraq // High heels, fatigues and gold rifle-shaped rings – singer Helly Luv’s blend of bang and bling has made her the most popular cheerleader for the Iraqi Kurds’ war against ISIL.
She visits peshmerga forces fighting the extremist group, which overran a third of Iraq last year, and says she filmed her latest music video in Al Khazr, not far from the militants’ lines.
“I want to give something to the peshmerga because I consider myself one of them,” says Luv, 26.
“I wore peshmerga clothes in the song to support them.”
The video, for a song titled Revolution, opens with a peshmerga fighter looking at a picture of himself with a young boy, presumably his son, as shelling and gunfire are heard in the background.
He tucks the photo inside his helmet and goes to fight.
The video then moves to a quiet village where children play and people sit drinking tea, but it soon comes under fire from black-clad militants driving armoured vehicles, including a tank.
A child screams and residents flee, but Helly Luv – wearing golden high heels with a white and red scarf covering her face – strides the other way to dramatic music, unfurling a banner before the tank that reads “Stop the violence”.
She sings and dances next to a car with “end war” spray painted on its side, but footage that includes peshmerga forces counterattacking and lyrics such as “We gon’ keep on fighting” make clear she means the violence will stop once ISIL is defeated.
The video and English lyrics are over the top and sometimes cringe-worthy, but also apparently popular, garnering 700,000 views on YouTube barely two weeks after its release.
“The song is called ‘Revolution’ and I call in it for Kurdistan and the countries of the world to unite to fight terrorism and injustice,” Helly Luv says.
“I want to show the world who the peshmerga forces are, and who Daesh is,” she says, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL that the group deems derogatory.
According to Nawzad Saleh, a peshmerga officer, in the days when they were mountain-based rebel fighters, singers sang songs encouraging them to fight.
“Now the Kurdish singers have begun singing for the peshmerga in other languages, and this is a beautiful step and will result in the world knowing more about who the peshmerga are,” he says.
Peshmerga fighter Abdulrahman Ahmed agrees, saying such songs will encourage “the international community to sympathise and cooperate with us more, and support us with weapons to continue fighting these terrorists and eliminate them once and for all”.
According to her online biography, Helly Luv was born Helan Abdulla in Iran in 1988 and her grandfather fought for the peshmerga.
Her family fled Saddam Hussein’s rule and she grew up mainly in Finland before flying to Los Angeles when she turned 18 to pursue a career in music.
With plenty of hip-swinging and hair-swishing, the rock-chick style of the “Kurdish Shakira” is in stark contrast with the sombre and pious nasheeds – songs without musical accompaniment – that have blossomed on social media over the past year, both for and against ISIL.
When the extremists took over swathes of Iraq in June last year and subsequently attacked the peshmerga, many in the West held up the Kurds as the moral and military flagship of the world’s fightback against ISIL.
Of filming in Al Khazr, Helly Luv says: “There were some who warned me against going there, but I insisted that filming be in real places affected by Daesh terrorism.”
* Agence France-Presse
Herc's Adventures
Developer: Big Ape Productions
Publisher: LucasArts
Console: PlayStation 1 & 5, Sega Saturn
Rating: 4/5
The specs: 2018 Ford Mustang GT
Price, base / as tested: Dh204,750 / Dh241,500
Engine: 5.0-litre V8
Gearbox: 10-speed automatic
Power: 460hp @ 7,000rpm
Torque: 569Nm @ 4,600rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 10.3L / 100km
Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans
Jasmin Mujanović, Hurst Publishers
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
