The Activism of Marwan Abdelhamid/Saint Levant

By Camille Majzun

On Thursday, October 26th, 2023, I headed into Manhattan to get dinner with my mom. I was in high spirits, because I had tickets to go see one of my favorite artists in concert afterward. However, I tend to plan poorly, so I waited until I was at dinner to find my ticket online. After a confusing ten minutes, my mom googled the show and reported this message to me: 

I am doing my cultural study on how this artist has used his platform to bring awareness to the situation of the Palestinian people in the past few months. Born on October 6th, 2000, Marwan Abdelhamid hails from Palestinian, Algerian, French, and Serbian origins. Using his multicultural identity and writing as "Saint Levant," Marwan combines genres and languages to make his unique style of music. His songs have always had political undertones, even before he started writing under the name Saint Levant. In 2022, he wrote a trilingual hip-hop rap song, "Very Few Friends," which blew up on TikTok (which is how I learned about him).

On December 2nd, Marwan was named one of GQ’s men of the year, and as he accepted his award, he gave the following speech.

 “Today my body is in Paris, but my heart is in Gaza. Gaza, the city I grew up in and the city for which I sing. They told me not to mention Palestine if I won this prize tonight, but you cannot censor me. And I cannot stay silent while more than 8000 Palestinian children have been murdered by the Israeli occupation that has been going on for 75 years.” 

-YouTube (translated from French)

This speech is an example of Marwan using his popularity to help spread awareness, even when it could negatively impact his career. This message is also essential for understanding the place that Saint Levant's music comes from and what he hopes to achieve with his platform. While all of his songs do not directly reflect a political message, the most recent one certainly does.

In February, he put out a song called “Deira, " which pays a peaceful tribute to the people and culture of Gaza in a traditional Shaabi Arab musical style. 

For this song, he worked in correlation with MC Abdul, a fifteen-year-old rapper from Palestine. Both men stress the importance of spreading love, unity, and peace on social media and through the music they make. For this song, Levant sings entirely in Arabic, and MC Abdul raps in English. The music video was filmed in Jordan and uses an Algerian melody, which shows the type of multicultural connections Marwan likes to make as Saint Levant. 

 One of the lines from Deira that Marwan chose to amplify on his social media is the following:

 "Oh, my homeland/ so much joy/so much sorrow/oh my precious homeland/our beloved Palestine is calling." 

-Youtube (translated from Arabic) 

Marwan makes this song accessible to a broader range of people by including English and Arabic subtitles in the official music video. He spoke about the name of the song "Deira" in a Variety interview, which I have added below. I included this because it shows how much of himself Marwan puts into his music and Saint Levant. 

In his words, “Deira is the name of the hotel that my father, Rashid, an architect, built with my mother in 2000 when they moved to Gaza. Deira means the Kasbah or the old city. He built this hotel with mud because it was impossible to import cement at the time. Located on the beach, this hotel was one of the most beautiful in Gaza, made up of 22 rooms. It was a true architectural marvel. On July 16, 2014, four children playing ball out front of the hotel were killed by Israeli rocket fire and most recently the hotel was totally destroyed by bombing three months ago.”  

-Saint Levant (February 23, 2024)

I chose to focus on Marwan Abdelhamid and his activism as Saint Levant because I deeply admire him, as a man and as an artist. Anger, hate, and outrage are easy emotions to feel; hope, on the other hand, is much less straightforward to maintain. Even after reading about the namesake of Deira, I personally find it difficult to remain calm. 

Although he has gained popularity, Marwan refuses to allow the issues he cares about to be left to the side. He uses this fame to call attention to his people, not just in his music, but also in his posts and his speeches. He is currently based in Los Angeles, but by continuing to lend his voice to the voiceless, he is constantly choosing to live and breathe war. Saint Levant does not allow his anger to dampen his message, he uses his music to help gather attention and support. He uses his talents to try to help bridge gaps and make connections between people. He makes the choice to stand for love and hope, even in the face of all the pain and anger being felt around the world right now. 

References:

Al Saadi, L. (2023). GQ Men of the year 2023: Saint Levant, from Gaza with ... Retrieved from https://www.gqmiddleeast.com/men-of-the-year/gq-moty-2023-saint-levant 

Aswad, J. (2024). Palestinian-algerian rapper Saint Levant Drops “Deira” single with MC Abdul, paying tribute to Gaza. Retrieved from https://variety.com/2024/music/news/palestinian-saint-levant-deira-gaza-mc-abdul-paying-1235920925/ 

Saint Levant - Deira Ft. MC Abdul (Official Video). (2024a). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRTtwtjNLdU 

Saint Levant’s brave speech accepting GQ France’s Man of the Year award. (2023). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3x8w2NXKyM