OFRA HAZA - Im Nin'Alu

At the age of twelve Ofra Haza joined a local theatre group in her poverty-stricken Tel Aviv neighborhood. Throughout the 1970's the young singer recorded three albums with the Shechunat Hatikvah Workshop Theatre, and by the time she was nineteen she was a Israeli pop sensation - she had been called "the Madonna of the East." A year before recording her first solo album, twenty-one year old Ofra Haza performed with the Shechunat Hatikva Workshop Theatre on 1978 Israeli television singing a 17th century Hebrew poem that she had set to music. In 1984 she recorded the song for an album, and in 1988, after over a dozen solo albums, the internationally celebrated Haza re-recorded the song. The new version of Im Nin'Alu was released as a single and extensively remixed, and it was featured on her 1988 Shaday album. The single topped the charts across Europe, and was eventually sampled by Coldcut for his notorious remix of Eric B & Rakim's Paid In Full. This video from 1978 is Ofra Haza's original performance of the song, view her 1988 video HERE. The song lyrics translated: "Even if the gates of the rich are closed, the gates of heaven will never be closed."