Singer, songwriter, director, and producer, Jad Shwery was Nile FM's guest on "Good Vibes Only"&nbsp;with Zeinab and he talked about his long and multi-phased career and his unique creative process.
Can you tell us more about your childhood and what inspired you to become an artist?&nbsp;
I started to find refuge in pop music, whether it was Michael Jackson, Madonna, or George Michael back in the 80s when I was born.
I used to learn the lyrics of some songs that were quite controversial for a 5-year-old, my parents were a bit concerned, and when I had an opportunity to go up on a stage and sing and dance and make jokes, I wanted to entertain people, because it was a beautiful thing to make people happy, laugh, dance, there&rsquo;s nothing more noble than this.
How was your experience studying in France?
I got a scholarship, it was something that I couldn&rsquo;t refuse, it was moviemaking studies and cinema studies, and it was a scholarship to Sorbonne, one of the most prestigious schools in France.
After I finished my master's and came back, I was like &ldquo;No, it&rsquo;s not behind the camera that I&rsquo;m going to be, I&rsquo;m going to be in front of it&rdquo;.
How is your creative process like when you&rsquo;re in front of the camera and directing the video at the same time?
A lot of people wonder about this. It&rsquo;s actually quite easy when you&rsquo;re a control freak.
Especially in the beginning, I wanted to have full control, and this is why the anxiety of being both in front of the camera and behind it was completely secondary.
How does it feel like when someone turns around to you and tells you &ldquo;I remember where I was, Who I was, what was going on in my life in that particular time when a song of yours came out&rdquo;?
It&rsquo;s the biggest rush. No other feeling in the world resembles that, but you also get the other side of it, when some people tell you silly things, or you read silly things about their experience with your music.
There are highs and lows with how some people perceive you, but there is nothing like somebody sharing their experiences with something you&rsquo;ve done.
I mean even when I don&rsquo;t like an artist, if I meet them and have something to say, it will be something nice, unless it&rsquo;s something that is constructive.
&nbsp;How do you know that a particular artist is one that you want to work with?
I like to collaborate with other artists, which wasn&rsquo;t very trendy back then, but now it is, now people realize that it&rsquo;s a very good opportunity to grow your audience and share some things with artists that don&rsquo;t necessarily resemble you.
It&rsquo;s very different when it&rsquo;s someone who&rsquo;s coming as a client who wants to shoot something with me, I always find a way to connect with them, but sometimes I don&rsquo;t.
When you write songs it&rsquo;s a very personal thing, when do you know that you&rsquo;re ready to give these songs to other artists?
When it&rsquo;s me writing for other people, I&rsquo;m already in a place where I&rsquo;m humbled, I&rsquo;m happy, I&rsquo;m proud to do it.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t feel like I&rsquo;m giving away my babies, on the contrary, it feels like they&rsquo;re growing or existing at least.
How do you know when someone has a talent that needs to be nurtured and you want to work with them?
Sometimes talents are imposed on me by the record label, and they gave me very hard things to deal with in the very beginning, and many people thought it was over the top and controversial but they gave me a very difficult assignments, so I had to pour in all my ideas and creativity to make this work, and it did.
Afterward when I had to choose people, like in the song &ldquo;Agaza&rdquo;, I had matured a bit, I wanted something different, and I had the upper hand in choosing who was going to sing with me, and who am I going to shoot a video for.
Your career seems to have many phases as you&rsquo;re an artist who is always changing and reinventing himself, can you tell us more about that?
Some phases intertwine, or come back, like a flashback, so I&rsquo;m not done with my rebel years yet.
People think right now with the new song &ldquo;El Seet&rdquo; with Suhayla &ldquo;He&rsquo;s singing with a veiled girl!&rdquo;. Well, wait till you listen to the next one.
I&rsquo;ve always been for freedom of expression, there&rsquo;s a very well-known saying by Voltaire &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll fight for your right to speak your mind, even though I hate what you&rsquo;re saying&rdquo;, it&rsquo;s not the situation with Suhayla but obviously, she&rsquo;s quite different from me, and from a different background, but that&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s interesting in it.
Which has been your favorite phase?
I have to say it&rsquo;s when &ldquo;Warreiny&rdquo; came out because things changed so fast. &nbsp;
Things were happening before but not on the scale when &ldquo;Warreiny&rdquo; came out because I started performing even more, especially in Egypt, so suddenly I&rsquo;m being taken seriously, even though before there were so many people against what I was doing.
Did you ever think about making a musical?
I&rsquo;ve been postponing trying to make movies whether it&rsquo;s as a director or as an actor but that&rsquo;s coming soon, I&rsquo;m going to do my first short movie and act in it for the first time, but as for musicals, I have done something last year that was a big success in Lebanon, it was called the &ldquo;The Balcony Show&rdquo;.
I did that with Maya Diab, and Joseph Attieh and we did a show on the balcony, and it gathered more than 80 thousand people that night on the streets of Gemmayze, and it was a beautiful show with 3D projection and dancers, and I just thought that maybe I should be doing that more often, I love being on stage, I love directing, and it all comes together when you&rsquo;re doing a musical or a show.
What&rsquo;s your advice for young artists?
First of all, listen to the people who made it, not to the ones who didn&rsquo;t.
Secondly, the most important advice I can give is to listen to others not only to execute what they&rsquo;re doing, but also to do the opposite, just listen and then make your choices, and knowledge will always pay off.
Lastly enjoy the process, if you enjoyed the process you&rsquo;ve already won.

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