Daly Gana looked like any other young contestant auditioning for the fourth season of The X Factor Arabia. He had long locks, a fit body and stylish clothes, but there was more to the Tunisian singer than meets the eye.
When the 27-year-old contestant came face to face with the judges, he stuttered when Donia Samir Ghanem asked him to introduce himself.
Fellow judges Lebanese superstars Elissa and Ragheb Alama were as puzzled as their star colleague.
Moments later, when Daly professionally played his guitar and uttered the first lyrics of U2's "When Love Comes to Town," the judges' expressions switched from those of puzzlement into amazement.
Daly's vocals were so good, he received a standing ovation from the live audience, while the judges cheered him on and threw excited "woo's" at him.
When the performance was over, Elissa told Daly, "You sang it better than U2. You're just AMAZING. Amazing."
Why was Daly's performance so remarkable? Since he was ten-years-old, the architect-wannabe-singer suffered from a speech impediment. Shocking, no? Had we heard Daly sing without any knowledge of this information, we would have never guessed that there was anything wrong with him.
Daly told the X Factor producers that the first time he really felt the burden of his disability was at university, where he was majoring in Architecture. It was very difficult for him to explain an assigned project to his professor through a spoken presentation, so he came up with the idea of singing it instead.
When Daly sings, the speech impediment steps aside and gives him the confidence and ability to do whatever he wants.
"I turned my disability from childhood into a talent as an adult," Daly said.
It's easy to give up when faced with a challenge like this, but the ambitious singer chose to turn something horrible into something beautiful. And although we empathise with contestants' sob stories as much as the next person, it was wonderful to see that Daly didn't use his to make the judges feel sorry for him. Instead, he chose to wow them with his talent and determination to win.
Undoubtedly, Daly is an inspiration to thousands of children and adults with the same disorder. We know we are inspired for sure.
Needless to say, Daly went straight through to round two!
By Arwad Khalifeh
