Rim Banna
ريم بنّا
Born: Nazareth, Israel
Domain: Music
Recognition: GLOBAL
Biography
Rim Banna, born in Nazareth on 8 December 1966 into a Palestinian Greek Orthodox family, was one of the most beloved Palestinian singers, composers, and arrangers of her generation, celebrated for breathing new life into traditional Palestinian songs and poetry. Her mother, Zuhaira Sabbagh, was a poet, and Banna grew up surrounded by language and music before studying at the Higher Music Conservatory in Moscow. Banna first rose to prominence in the early 1990s by recording her own versions of traditional Palestinian children's songs and lullabies that were on the verge of being forgotten, an act of cultural preservation that became central to her mission. She gave these folk melodies sophisticated new arrangements, ensuring that a vanishing oral heritage would reach new generations. Over her career she released numerous albums setting the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish and other Palestinian writers to music. Her international reach expanded dramatically with her contribution to Lullabies from the Axis of Evil (2004), on which she collaborated with Norwegian and other Western artists. The project gathered female singers from countries the U.S. administration had branded part of an 'axis of evil,' turning that label on its head as an affirmation of shared humanity. Through it, Banna's voice reached audiences across Europe and beyond, making her one of the most visible Palestinian musicians internationally. Banna's art was inseparable from her political and humanitarian commitment. She sang of Palestinian land, memory, exile, and resistance, and she became, for many, the voice of Palestine, a phrase used in the title of a documentary about her life. Even after being diagnosed with breast cancer, she continued to record, and after losing much of her voice to the illness she produced work that incorporated her changed sound, transforming personal suffering into art. She died in her hometown of Nazareth on 24 March 2018, at the age of 51, after a nine-year struggle with cancer. Her death was mourned across the Arab world and the diaspora as the loss of an irreplaceable cultural figure. Rim Banna's legacy lies in her dual achievement: rescuing endangered Palestinian folk heritage and projecting it, with artistry and dignity, onto the world stage as a living, evolving tradition.
Why This Person Matters
She rescued endangered Palestinian folk songs and lullabies from oblivion and carried them, with rare artistry, to the world, becoming for many 'the voice of Palestine.'