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IRBIL, Iraq (AP) \u2014 Seven days after the legendary Iraqi singer Sajida Obaid<\/a> died, women sat wrapped in black veils and abayas, their faces wet at her family home in the northern city of Irbil. Some were family members and others were fans who had loved her for decades.<\/p>\n Bitter black coffee, the drink of Iraqi mourning, passed quietly from hand to hand. The music drifting in from outside filled the spaces between sobs.<\/p>\n Outside, men sat under a canvas tent in the street. A traditional band beat the daf as some of the men wiped their eyes. In Iraq, the seventh day marks a return, a final gathering before grief begins to thin into memory.<\/p>\n Obaid died on April 4 at the age of 68 after a battle with lung cancer. The news was overshadowed by the Iran war that had spilled over into neighboring Iraq.<\/a> But for her fans, her death felt personal \u2014 the loss of a woman whose voice had given them, for a few hours at a time, something close to freedom.<\/p>\n In Iraq, a woman moving through public life carries weight with her; eyes watching what she wears, how she moves, whether she is stepping too far outside the lines. So Obaid decided to hold parties only for women. Every staff member including the DJ, the waiters, the security, and the organizers was a woman. No phones were allowed to prevent photography. To protect the women in the room, their freedom stayed inside those walls.<\/p>\n Women who would never dream of dancing in front of male audience came. They dressed how they wanted and danced the way they had forgotten they could.<\/p>\n Virgin Jaji, 68, was one of them. While the Arab world traditionally begins its mornings with the dreamy songs of the Lebanese singer Fayrouz, Jaji said she has listened to Obaid every morning for years, in the car, at home, even at the gym. \u201cEven my parrot only dances to Sajida Obaid\u2019s music.<\/p>\n \u201cIn her women\u2019s parties we danced like we had no cares in the world,\u201d Jaji said, her eyes red from crying. \u201cWe felt free. Truly free.\u201d<\/p>\n Mina Mohammed, 40, said, \u201cThe first time I heard about a women-only party by Sajida, I borrowed money from friends just to be in that hall. Her voice will always take me back to the best moments of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Obaid was born in Baghdad in 1957, the daughter of a Roma family. In Iraq, Roma people are known as \u201cKawliya,\u201d a community long tied to music and performance, but also one that has lived for generations at the edge of society. Sajida began singing at 12, performing at parties to help her family pay the bills.<\/p>\n By her teenage years she was already a known name. Her voice was warm and commanding, rooted in the dance rhythms of the Kawliya and in the older, more tender Iraqi style known as mawal. By the 1980s, it had reached the most powerful and most dangerous men in Iraq.<\/p>\nA space for women to let loose<\/h2>\n
A quick rise to stardom<\/h2>\n