Ninette Tayeb
Encyclopedia
Ninet Tayeb (born October 21, 1983, in Kiryat Gat, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

) is an Israeli-pop rock
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...

 singer and actress who became widely known as the first winner of Kochav Nolad (the Israeli version of American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...

).

She is currently performing after the release of her second album, and stars in the Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i version of Spring Awakening
Spring Awakening
Spring Awakening is a rock musical adaptation of the controversial 1892 German play of the same title by Frank Wedekind. It features music by Duncan Sheik and a book and lyrics by Steven Sater. Set in late-19th century Germany, it concerns teenagers who are discovering the inner and outer tumult of...

.

Early life

Tayeb is of Moroccan
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

 Sephardic Jewish descent, the third of five children to her parents. She was raised in Kiryat Gat, where she started to sing in the local youth center. She was nicknamed Nina by her friends and family.

Kokhav Nolad

During her IDF
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...

 service, Tayeb auditioned for the first season of "Lo Nafsik Lashir – Kokhav Nolad
Kokhav Nolad
Kokhav Nolad is an Israeli reality television show searching for talented new vocalists based on the British Pop Idol and American Idol model. Since its debut on Israeli Channel 2 in 2003, Kokhav Nolad has achieved great popularity and turned out many new musical stars...

, then a format under development. The Israeli media embraced her as a Cinderella story and named her the star, and she was in the lead all throughout the season. In the semifinal, she sang a song by Hayehudim
HaYehudim
HaYehudim is an Israeli hard rock band, formed in 1992 by married couple Tom Petrover and Orit Shachaf, who share guitar playing and vocal duties. The band has achieved tremendous success in Israel despite commercial disregard in its first years, and has sold over 200,000 albums in Israel.The band...

, bringing mainstream attention to the veteran band. In the final, she performed Zohar Argov
Zohar Argov
Zohar Argov was a popular Israeli singer and a distinctive voice in the Mizrahi music scene.- Background :The most serious hurdle on the way to stardom was Argov's socioeconomic background. He was born in Rishon LeZion, and grew up in a poor family, the eldest of ten children...

's classic Mizrahi song "Yam Shel Dma'ot" (A Sea of Tears), and won with almost half of the votes. She is the contestant with the longest-lasting and largest popularity after the show.

She is usually invited to the grand finale of the show every year and introduced as the number one winner of the show.

Acting career

After winning Kokhav Nolad
Kokhav Nolad
Kokhav Nolad is an Israeli reality television show searching for talented new vocalists based on the British Pop Idol and American Idol model. Since its debut on Israeli Channel 2 in 2003, Kokhav Nolad has achieved great popularity and turned out many new musical stars...

, Teddy productions, the production company behind Kokhav Nolad
Kokhav Nolad
Kokhav Nolad is an Israeli reality television show searching for talented new vocalists based on the British Pop Idol and American Idol model. Since its debut on Israeli Channel 2 in 2003, Kokhav Nolad has achieved great popularity and turned out many new musical stars...

, created a daily drama to capitalize on Tayeb's popularity. The show, HaShir Shelanu
HaShir Shelanu
HaShir Shelanu is an Israeli daily comical musical drama that had finished its 4th season airing on the yes-5 Israeli Movie Channel and repeating on Israel channel 2.The last episode aired in April 2007.-Season 1:...

 ("Our Song"), was loosely based on Tayeb's life, became a hit and ran through 4 seasons, with Tayeb starring as Ninet Levi for two seasons, and as herself for the remaining two.

In 2009 the movie "Kirot", a thriller directed by Dani Lerner, was released to theaters with Ninet in the lead as a beaten woman avenging her abusing husband.

Barefoot

Three years after winning the Israeli Kokhav Nolad reality show, Tayeb began work on her first album, Barefoot (Yechefa, Hebrew: יחפה). The album was produced by the Israeli rock singer Aviv Geffen
Aviv Geffen
Aviv Geffen is an Israeli rock musician, singer, songwriter, producer, keyboardist and guitarist. He is the son of writer and poet Yehonatan Geffen and Nurit Makover, brother of actress Shira Geffen, and an alumnus of Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music.Geffen was and is extremely popular...

, whom Ninet admired in her teen years; it was mainly composed, written and adapted by him. The album was released on September 7, 2006, and was later certified gold, selling more than 20,000 copies. The cover image was produced by Helicon.

1. Barefoot

"Yehefa" / יחפה

2. When You Are Here
[Released as first single on July]

"KsheAta Kan" / כשאתה כאן

3. Anything Might Happen
[Released as second single on August]

"HaKol Yakhol Likrot" / הכול יכול לקרות

4. Days of Forgiveness

"Yamim Shel Sliha" / ימים של סליחה

5. If You Come
[Released as fourth single on December]

"Im Tavo" / אם תבוא

6. Longing (Are the Children of Loneliness)

"Ga'agu'im (Hem HaYeladim Shel HaBdidut)" / געגועים הם הילדים של הבדידות

7. Good to Die In the Name of Love

"Tov Lamut BeAd HaAhava" / טוב למות בעד האהבה

8. She Knows
[Released as third single on November & first video clip, see this section]

"Hi Yoda'at" / היא יודעת

9. After All

"Aharei HaKol" / אחרי הכול

10. How Does It Feel When It's Over

"Eikh Margishim KsheZe Nigmar" / איך מרגישים כשזה נגמר

11. Knew You'd Be Back

"Yadati SheTahzor" / ידעתי שתחזור

12. Puppet

"Buba" / בובה

Songs 1–4 (including the first two singles) & 6, 10 & 12- were all written, composed and adapted by Geffen. Song 5, the fourth single, was written by Eli Moreno, composed by Ilay Bottner & adapted by Idan Raichel and Gil'ad Shmu'eli. Song 7 was written and composed by Erez Al'Grebli, and adapted by him and Tomer Mazmer. Song 8, the third single (and first video clip) was written by Tayeb, composed by her and Ilay Bottner, and adapted by Aviv. Song 9 was written by Barak Pheldman, composed and adapted by Yonni Bloch. Song 11 was written by Tayeb and Geffen, composed & adapted by him.

Tayeb has expressed some unhappiness with the first album, noting that due to microphone issues, her singing quality in it was not good.

Communicative

On November 17, 2009, Tayeb released her second album, Communicativi (communicative). Tayeb wrote all the lyrics in the album, composed most of it, and produced and arranged the album with Rockfour
Rockfour
Rockfour is a Psychedelic rock band, formed in 1988 in Holon, Israel. Most of their catalog is in English, and they regularly tour the United States.-Early years:...

. The album was praised by the critics as brave and exciting, mostly for the major shift in Tayeb's image from "the national sweetheart" of Israel to a darker image of a rocker. The album introduces Tayeb's new musical influences from the rock genre such as Jeff Buckley
Jeff Buckley
Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Buckley , raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of Tim Buckley, also a musician...

, P.J. Harvey, etc. This album is by far less commercial than her debut and none of the singles that have been released became hits, although Tayeb's status as Israel's most famous person in entertainment remains strong, thus making "Communicativi" one of the most talked about albums of recent years.

Track listing:
1. אם אני אלך / If I Leave

2. מדברים / Talking

3. כלה / Bride

4. עבדים / Slaves

5. שלווה / Serenity

6. אולי בחגים / Maybe During The Holidays

7. כך היה תמיד / It's Always Been Like This

8. פרח / Flower

9. כדור פורח / Balloon

10. כלב / Dog

11. יקינטון / Hyacinth

12. בשקט הזה / In This Silence

13. שני מעברים / Two Passages

Awards and nominations

  • Sounds and Voices – IBA – First Place, 2001.
  • The Next King (המלך הבא) – Third place, 2002.
  • Kokhav Nolad
    Kokhav Nolad
    Kokhav Nolad is an Israeli reality television show searching for talented new vocalists based on the British Pop Idol and American Idol model. Since its debut on Israeli Channel 2 in 2003, Kokhav Nolad has achieved great popularity and turned out many new musical stars...

     – First place, 2003.
  • Golden Screen Awards – won Best Actress In A Daily Drama, 2005.
  • Pnai Plus Magazine – The Beautiful Right People project – First place, 2005.
  • Shir Nolad – First place, 2006.
  • Children's Chosen People (The Children's Channel) – Favorite Actress, 2006.
  • The Israeli Music Channel Awards – won Singer Of The Year award, 2007.
  • Children's Chosen People (The Children's Channel) – Favorite Singer, 2007.
  • Jerusalem Radio – Singer Of The Year, 2007.
  • People Of The Year – nominated for Person Of The Year In Musics in 2006 and 2009.
  • Song of The Decade project (Channel 24 and Galgalatz
    Galgalatz
    Galgalatz is a popular Israeli radio station operated by Israel Defense Forces Radio. This is the second of two Israel Defense Forces-operated stations, while the first one is Israel Defense Forces Radio/Galatz. The station was established in 1993 and broadcasts primarily nonstop pop music and...

    ) – Singer of the decade nomination.
  • MTV Europe Music Awards
    MTV Europe Music Awards
    The MTV Europe Music Awards were established in 1994 by MTV Networks Europe to celebrate the most popular music videos in Europe. Originally beginning as an alternative to the American MTV Video Music Awards, the MTV Europe Music Awards is today a popular celebration of what MTV viewers consider...

     – Won Israel's favorite act, 2009.


In 2005, she was voted the 10th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet
Ynet
Ynet is the most popular Israeli news and general content website. It is owned by the same conglomerate that operates Yediot Ahronot, the country's secondleading daily newspaper...

 to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.

Other projects

In 2004 Tayeb recorded a song called "Like Everybody" with comedian Eli Finish
Eli Finish
Eli Finish is an Israeli actor and comedian. He is well known for acting in the popular TV show Eretz Nehederet.-Career:After his release from the IDF in 1996, Finish studied acting in the art school HaBustan in Netanya...

 for the charity television broadcast "Yomtov". In 2008 Tayeb took part in the documentary TV series "Once In A Lifetime" for which she flew to Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

 with musician Ben Artzi, where they recorded a reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 track together with local musicians. In memorial of Ofra Haza
Ofra Haza
Ofra Haza was an Israeli singer of Yemeni origin, an actress and international recording artist....

 she recorded, along with Ivri Lider
Ivri Lider
Ivri Lider is an Israeli pop rock singer-songwriter. He is one of the biggest-selling contemporary artists in Israeli music, and has won the Male Singer of the Year honor from major Israeli national and local radio stations since entering the Israeli music scene in the late 1990s...

, a pop rock version of Haza's song "This Pain". The duet became a hit in Israel in 2007.

In the annual musical project "Hebrew Labor" of 2008 (new versions of Israeli classics), she recorded Ilan Virtzberg's song to late poet Yona Wallach
Yona Wallach
-Writing career:She was proud of her bisexuality and stunned her readers with her daring expressions of sexuality and spirituality combined.Wallach also featured Jungian psychology in her work. Wallach also wrote lyrics for, and performed with, Israeli rock bands. Her book, Island Songs, was...

 lyrics, "I Couldn't Do Anything With This". The song was the first public presentation of "the new Ninet", as it introduced an alternative rock direction in Tayeb's career.

Tayeb took part in the annual children's song contest Festigal
Festigal
Festigal is an annual Israeli singing show for audience of children and their parents during the Hanukkah vacation time. Initially designed as a song contest, its format was gradually expanded, with famous Israeli singers and actors taking part in it. Now the Festigal event is built around some...

 as a guest performer (not performing on Saturdays due to religious reasons) in 2004. In 2006 she participated in the children's production Shir Nolad – a cover versions competition of classical children's songs, which she won with a cover version of the classic "Mother". It was during that time when she met future life partner Yehuda Levi
Yehuda Levi
Yehuda Levi is an Israeli actor and male model. He was born and now lives in Tel Aviv, but spent much of his childhood in South Africa. He attended the "Thelma Yellin" High school, and graduated with excellence. His noticeable breakthrough was in the TV series "Lechayey Ha'ahava" .He is an...

. She competed in the renewed Children's Song Festival in 2008 with the song "Layla" (Nighty Night) which she wrote and composed herself. The song featured, once again, alternative influences in the melody and her singing.

Tayeb was invited to perform in tribute concerts for Meir Ariel
Meir Ariel
Meir Ariel was an Israeli singer-songwriter.He was known as a "man of words" for his poetic use of the Hebrew language in his lyrics. His influences included Hebrew poets such as Natan Alterman, S. Y...

, Inbal Perlmutter, Elliott Smith
Elliott Smith
Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and resided for a significant portion of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he first gained popularity...

 and Jeff Buckley
Jeff Buckley
Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Buckley , raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of Tim Buckley, also a musician...

. The latter is the object of Tayeb's admiration. After meeting with Buckley's guitarist and song writer Gary Lucas
Gary Lucas
Gary Lucas is an American guitarist, a Grammy-nominated songwriter, a soundtrack composer for film and television, and an international recording artist with over a dozen solo albums to date. He has been described as "one of the best and most original guitarists in America" ; a "legendary leftfield...

, Lucas invited Tayeb to record a song which he co-wrote with Buckley but was never recorded.

In 2009 she performed in the renewed Arad Festival. It was the first time Tayeb performed her new material to a large audience. The reaction was unpleasant: Tayeb was booed off stage and refused an encore, which not much to anyone's surprise caused a bit of a media frenzy. Weeks later in a television interview about the Arad incident she stated: "It was painful, but it's the audience's prerogative".

Tayeb recorded the Hebrew soundtrack for the movie Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins (film)
Mary Poppins is a 1964 musical film starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, produced by Walt Disney, and based on the Mary Poppins books series by P. L. Travers with illustrations by Mary Shepard. The film was directed by Robert Stevenson and written by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, with songs by...

. She was chosen by Walt Disney Company to record the Hebrew soundtrack for the movie The Princess And The Frog.

In 2010 Tayeb was chosen for the role of Wendla in Israeli production of the musical Spring Awakening
Spring Awakening
Spring Awakening is a rock musical adaptation of the controversial 1892 German play of the same title by Frank Wedekind. It features music by Duncan Sheik and a book and lyrics by Steven Sater. Set in late-19th century Germany, it concerns teenagers who are discovering the inner and outer tumult of...

 at "Beit Lessin" Theatre.

Tayeb is the host of Israel Radio's 88 FM station "Pando Najena" show. She is currently working on two albums, one in English and one in Hebrew, with Rockfour.

Personal life

Tayeb began dating her Hashir Shelanu
HaShir Shelanu
HaShir Shelanu is an Israeli daily comical musical drama that had finished its 4th season airing on the yes-5 Israeli Movie Channel and repeating on Israel channel 2.The last episode aired in April 2007.-Season 1:...

 co-star (and on screen lover) Ran Danker
Ran Danker
Ran Danker is an Israeli actor, singer and model. He is the son of Israeli actor Eli Danker. He has sung such songs as "אני אש" . He has also starred in the hit Israeli series HaShir Shelanu...

 in 2004. Their on screen and off screen romance was the source of unprecedented media and public interest. Soon after their break up in early 2006, rumors arose speculating that their break up was the result of an affair between Tayeb and actor Yehuda Levi
Yehuda Levi
Yehuda Levi is an Israeli actor and male model. He was born and now lives in Tel Aviv, but spent much of his childhood in South Africa. He attended the "Thelma Yellin" High school, and graduated with excellence. His noticeable breakthrough was in the TV series "Lechayey Ha'ahava" .He is an...

, the boyfriend of Hashir Shelanu
HaShir Shelanu
HaShir Shelanu is an Israeli daily comical musical drama that had finished its 4th season airing on the yes-5 Israeli Movie Channel and repeating on Israel channel 2.The last episode aired in April 2007.-Season 1:...

 co-star Efrat Boimvald. The two supposedly met while working on the children show production Shir Nolad in 2006. Although Levi ended his relationship with Boimvald after 7 years, Tayeb and Levi denied the rumors. They were spotted together on several occasions and after five months, Tayeb confirmed the new romance in an interview, stating that the two were in love. In 2009, Levi confessed in an interview that their romance began while they were both dating other people. Tayeb and Levi now live together in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

.

External links

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