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00:00I think we just say, alhamdulillah, look where we are, like, thank God we made it, you know.
00:04So with the team, usually we'll get together and just be grateful together.
00:18Marhaba, maakoum Sanodhan, and this is On Your Radar.
00:22I think the sound right now is a mixture of very traditional Arab music, shaabi music,
00:29and then elements of pop with pinches of English, Arabic, French in the lyrics.
00:36I think earliest memory of music is definitely in the city that I grew up in, Gaza,
00:42sitting in the back of the car with my dad, and he was playing probably some Lenny Kravitz
00:49or Wife Love Jean, he was really big into those two.
00:52Shabkhalet as well was huge for us.
00:54My mom is Algerian, and my dad grew up in Algeria, so there was a lot of Shabkhalet.
00:59I realized that music was for me when I did a talent show, I think I was in third grade,
01:04and it was fully a dance recital that I did to a Michael Jackson song.
01:10It was Smooth Criminal, and me and my boy Haitham, we tried to do, you know the thing where he like,
01:17where he goes like that, and then he defies gravity.
01:21We're trying to figure it out, we didn't figure it out.
01:23I learned recently that he had these things under his boots that he was holding,
01:28it shattered, it was like Santa Claus, you know.
01:32I think that was, when I did that, and then everyone was like,
01:34oh my god, this is so cool, and then the year after that I played piano
01:38at the talent show, and I sang Billionaire by Bruno Mars,
01:43which is such a banger, that song, even to this day.
01:47I mean in Come Say Boat, one of my songs I say,
01:50which means I used to, as a kid, dream of traveling the world and singing,
01:57and here I am, you know, alhamdulillah.
01:59Biggest musical influences are definitely Shep Khaled is one, Michael Jackson is another,
02:06Stromae is another Belgian legend,
02:12Wyclef Jean, Lenny Kravitz, those are like my Mount Rushmore, basically, and Fayrouz.
02:19My first performance was in Arizona.
02:21I drove from Santa Barbara, because I went to school in Santa Barbara,
02:25I drove me, Henry, my producer at the time, and my videographer at the time, Diego,
02:30I drove them 10 hours to Arizona.
02:32We performed in front of like 50 people.
02:35It was at the Arab Student Union, I think,
02:37and that was one of the greatest nights of my life.
02:40It was the first time I saw people singing my songs back to me,
02:43and to me, even to this day, it's kind of a concept that's,
02:48and alhamdulillah, obviously.
02:50So yeah, in 2022, and then a year later, I did like 20,000 people in Romania,
02:55you know, not even a year after.
02:58Wow.
02:58I think I like having a lot of people on stage, because it feels like the community is with me,
03:02and you know, where we come from as Arabs, it's quite a community-oriented culture,
03:08so just having people with me on stage is very comfortable.
03:12My musicians are amazing, they really elevate the show.
03:17And then the boys, like sometimes they come out, you know,
03:20just waving Palestinian flags and stuff, so that's always nice.
03:24I don't think we have any pre-show rituals.
03:26I think we just say alhamdulillah, look where we are.
03:28Like, thank God we made it, you know.
03:31We try to stay grateful always, something that my mom taught me when I was very young,
03:36and I think, yeah, it's just about being grateful to be here,
03:40you know, with all the stress that comes with shows and stuff.
03:43I think being grateful really grounds all of us,
03:45so with the team, usually we'll get together and just be grateful together.
03:53The process of making this album, I started, I think, last year.
03:56It's really cool to me, because a lot of the songs take a lot of elements of
04:01North African and Algerian music and mix it with Palestinian,
04:07like talking about the experience of being Palestinian.
04:09You know, if you know anything about Algerians, it's that they love Palestinians.
04:14Because we share a similar history of colonialism,
04:17to me, it's really cool that I'm able to represent these two cultures that I come from.
04:20Both my parents were raised in Algeria.
04:23Unfortunately, I was not brought up with this culture,
04:26but I really tapped in, and through music, I was able to get closer to this culture,
04:31understand it more.
04:32The song with Kehlani is really special to me, because it's called Allah Yehmeeki,
04:37which means God protect you, in the feminine sense.
04:40I'm talking directly to a woman.
04:42I'm telling her, may God protect you.
04:45I have Eliana on the song, backing vocals, a Palestinian legend.
04:52I have Zayn on the backing vocals as well, a Palestinian singer, a legend as well.
04:57I wrote the song initially with another Palestinian artist called Lana Lubbani,
05:01who's also a legend.
05:02I love her.
05:04And then I have Kehlani on it.
05:05I have these four.
05:07For me, these four women represent everything that it means to be a woman and be empowered.
05:15I'm really privileged to be able to share this song with all of them.
05:21I dedicate this song to all the women in general, because my mom really inspires me a lot.
05:31She's like my rock.
05:33God protect her.
05:34My father built and designed this hotel in Gaza called Dira,
05:39which I grew up in, spent the first seven years of my life in that hotel.
05:42The hotel is made out of mud, because at the time,
05:45they couldn't import cement because of the Israeli occupation,
05:50that obviously controls everything going in and out.
05:52They control the sea.
05:53They control the air.
05:54The album itself, not to be too literal about it, but the whole concept is like,
06:01I obviously want to return to the country that I grew up in, the city that I grew up in.
06:09The album is reimagining or imagining a return to a liberated Palestine
06:14and a return to the Dira Hotel that we will rebuild, which is a dream right now.
06:19But the way that I work, I know that this is something that will happen one day.
06:24And this piece of art that we're making is just speaking a liberated Palestine
06:30into existence.
06:31And we did a release party last week in Paris.
06:34Someone gave me a painting of the Dira Hotel being rebuilt.
06:39And there's like a construction worker and it says reopening in 2048.
06:43And not gonna lie to you, I started crying so much.
06:46Like, that was mad.
06:48At the end of the road, there's a golden sky.
06:51So it's important for us that are in positions of privilege to
06:55imagine this future and speak it into existence.
06:58And that's kind of what the whole album is about.
07:01How does resilience sound?
07:03I think our existence as Palestinians is political.
07:09So any sound that comes out of our mouth is resilient.
07:12I think that everything that we do is resilient, whether it be painting,
07:16whether it be drawing, whether it be singing.
07:20I think anything that Palestinians do defies the status quo.
07:25Palestinians only know resilience.