Saint Levant On Your Radar

Rolling Stone

Watch Saint Levant On Your Radar - Rolling Stone on Dailymotion

Transcript

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.

Category

Transcript

Recommended