Story highlights Yasmine Hamdan is an icon of underground music across the Arab world

She says a number of her songs are inspired by conversations during Beirut taxi rides

(CNN) In Beirut, that bustling Lebanese capital that continues to live in the shadows of a 15-year civil war, communities are still segregated, distrustful and divided over many fault lines that only taxi drivers can dare to cross.

In the backseat of one of those green or navy old Mercedes-Benz taxis sits singer and songwriter Yasmine Hamdan, listening to the driver's tales from Beirut's diverse neighborhoods, engaging in serious and not so serious political discussions, and taking notes of those amusing statements that transpire in the rickety car.

An icon of underground music across the Arab world, 40-year-old Hamdan says that a number of her alternative electro-pop songs are inspired by those taxi rides.

Yasmine Hamdan performs at Cafe de la Danse in Paris on May 20, 2014.

"When I go to Beirut I don't drive. It's traumatizing to drive there," the Paris-based Lebanese-born artist told CNN at the backstage of her performance in Dubai this month.

"In the Arab world, people don't mix much. Taxi drivers have all kinds of people getting in their cars. So they give a sense of the city and its vibes," she says. And one of her songs in her upcoming album is about a driver talking about corruption "in a poetic way."

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