Tania Saleh Reimagines Levantine Childhood on ‘Le'ab Welad Zghar’

Tania Saleh, a key figure in the Lebanese alternative music scene since the 90s, has recently released an audio-visual project ‘Le'ab Welad Zghar’ (Child’s Play), reimagining the soundtracks of Levantine childhood.

‘Le'ab Welad Zghar’ is an album composed of 10 original Lebanese songs in three languages - English, French and Arabic - all accompanied by educational animated videos to help Levantine children in the diaspora keep their mother tongue alive. The album touches on necessary concepts for children’s education like the alphabet and the days of the week, along with poignant themes of love, freedom and overcoming the fear of war.

“This project is a gift of love for our children who are growing up far from each other,” Tania Saleh tells SceneNoise. “It would be ideal to unite them all by creating original content in their common dialect that is fun and relatable.”

In the last few months of 2024, Tania Saleh will host the album launch event, where the animated videos will be screened in an exhibition space, and a colouring book of the album will be sold to children as an end-of-year gift, with a portion of the revenue directed to distributing books to displaced children in Lebanon. The colouring book will contain a QR code that will direct the children to watch the songs on YouTube or listen to them on any online streaming platform.

The songwriting and music production as well as the animations of all of the album’s tracks were helmed by Tania herself. A single from the album, titled ‘Our Swing’, will be available on YouTube with its animated video in subtitles.

‘Le'ab Welad Zghar’ will be released in full on all streaming platforms on November 11th.