The Iraqi writer and music critic, Ali Abdel-Amir, said in his book “The Last Dance of the Red Dress”: “The phenomenon of producing songs by these singers surfaced after the American invasion of Iraq 2003, but from Dubai, where Hatem Al-Iraqi, Salah Al-Bahr and Alaa Saad resided. In addition to what is produced by less well-known Iraqi singers in Damascus and Amman.
Abdel-Amir added that they “found, instead of Al-Shabab TV, channels broadcasting Arabic songs, along with some Iraqi commercial channels.” However, he severely criticized this type of songs, describing his melodies as “low” and the singers’ voices as “inconsistent with the technical conditions.” . And he considered that the song “Orange” in particular relies on “an abundance of dancing bodies to cover its artistic incoherence.”
The song, which has sold thousands of copies, sparked a huge controversy that spanned for years. Today, the song is on YouTube, where it has achieved millions of views. Three years after its release, in March 2007, the Iraqi singer Saadoun Jaber, Saad Alaa, was accused of distorting the song “Orange”.
Jaber said in press statements at the time that “The Orange Song is an old folk song by Masoud al-Amartli, who is a great Iraqi artist.” However, he criticized Saad’s singing of the song, saying that it was “a beautiful song, but it was re-sung and directed in an invalid way that damaged the reputation of Iraqi women and offended her, and he wanted the one who introduced her to promote it through Naked girls dancing. The song shouldn’t have appeared like this. Now let’s see where is the song Orange? It’s dead.”
But the other singer, Kazem El-Saher, had a different opinion, as he praised the song and its singer in January 2005, during a press conference on the sidelines of the sixth Doha Music Festival. Al-Saher told reporters at the time that he “does not find the orange bad or silly, as some say, at all, but rather it is a beautiful and good song.”
Al-Saher added that “the dance scenes in the clip, which captured the lion’s share of criticism, are from the Iraqi heritage that exists among the gypsies in one of the regions of Iraq, meaning that what the Arab audience watched is from the core of folklore,” considering that “it was better to present the dance scenes in a manner thoughtful and more respectful.” He also wished “if the girls wore the traditional dress for these dances.”
The fact is that the controversy over the song is not due to its artistic level or the opinions of critics about it, but rather because it turned all its participants into a potential target for physical liquidation, after their photos were published in the port of Umm Qasr in Basra, and an extremist group threatened to kill them.
In fact, the threat was actually implemented, and one of the performers who participated in the video clip of the song, Hanadi, was killed. On October 23, Arab media reported a story saying: “Her kidnappers fired four bullets into her skull, killing her instantly, and the motive, according to the group’s claim, was the scandalous dance in the song Orange by artist Alaa Saad.”
The news at the time sparked a wave of rumors about the killing of the main dancer in the video clip, Ghaida Saad, whose title after the song spread became “The Orange Artist”. She was living in Dubai and appearing as a solo dancer in the nightclubs of the city. However, the Iraqi journalist, Sari Hussam, explained that it was the high school dancer, Hanadi, who fell victim to extremism, after she was kidnapped and killed by members of her clan.
Hossam indicated that Ghaida is still living in the Emirates, and her news has been cut off for a long time, that is, since 2006, and he revealed news published in a Gulf newspaper about her marriage to a Saudi businessman.
