Her powerful voice and extensive training have enabled her to perform some of the most challenging maqams, and her mastery of the form is truly extraordinary with both a technique that requires full command of complex melodies and an understanding of the philosophies embedded within them. Farida specializes in maqam al-baghdadi, which has its roots in the culture of Mesopotamia and is a secular form that relies on improvisation. When Farida became the first Iraqi woman to perform maqam in the US in 2001, The New York Times reviewer likened her to Linda Ronstadt, while the Chicago Tribune detected “the swelling sweetness of Bonnie Raitt wrapped around the gale-force power of Pavarotti.”