Saint Levant

Saint Levant (born October 6, 2000, Jerusalem) is a Palestinian trilingual singer and rapper known for music that blends funk, rock, hip-hop, and rhythm and blues with traditional Palestinian and Algerian rhythms, including raï. He gained a wide audience in November 2022 when his single “Very Few Friends” went viral on TikTok. The song, featuring matter-of-fact, smoothly vocalized lyrics that alternate seamlessly between English, Arabic, and French against a mid-tempo beat, exemplifies his distinctive style, which fuses Western and Middle Eastern musical sensibilities.

Background, early life, and education

The music of Saint Levant, born Marwan Abdelhamid, is strongly informed by his family history and upbringing. He was named after his paternal grandfather, Marwan, whose family was displaced from Safed (now in Israel) during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (which Palestinians refer to as the Nakba [Arabic: “the catastrophe”]). The elder Marwan received a scholarship to study engineering in Yugoslavia, where he married a Serbian doctor, and afterward he and his wife moved to Algeria. Abdelhamid’s father, Rashid, was born and raised in Algeria, where he married Maria Mohammedi, a French-Algerian woman. Rashid studied architecture and had an interest in art curation, and Maria studied law. In a 2023 interview with an art foundation based in the United Arab Emirates, Abdelhamid indicated that he considers himself Mediterranean—appreciative of the variety of peoples and cultures on the Mediterranean coast—given his multicultural upbringing. Growing up, he spoke French at home, Arabic with neighbors, and English at the private American school he attended.

Abdelhamid was born in Jerusalem following the optimism of the Oslo Accords (1993–95), a series of peace agreements that set out a path for Palestinian self-governance. His parents had moved to the Gaza Strip in 1997 during a development boom there. His mother joined UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), and his father designed and operated a luxury hotel, Al Deira, which opened along the Mediterranean in Gaza City in 2000, the year Abdelhamid was born. However, the outbreak of the second intifada that year dampened hopes for the peace process and ultimately marked a turning point in the economic prospects of the Gaza Strip.

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Nevertheless, the family remained in Gaza for several years. Despite renewed optimism for the Gaza Strip after Israel withdrew its forces and settlers in 2005, conflict in 2007 between Fatah and Hamas, the main Palestinian political factions, led to dismal circumstances in the Gaza Strip, including a sustained economic blockade by Israel and Egypt. The fighting that year pushed Abdelhamid’s family to relocate to Amman, Jordan, where he remained for the next decade.

Music was part of Abdelhamid’s life from an early age. His maternal grandmother, a music teacher who had worked at a French school in Algiers, taught him piano as a child. He picked up the saxophone in middle school. His father, a lover of the arts, also instilled in him an admiration for music.

In 2017 Abdelhamid began studying international relations at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received a bachelor’s degree in 2022.

Career

In 2020 Abdelhamid created a TikTok account to discuss Palestinian history and politics. But he quickly pivoted to making music. He released his first two singles, “Jerusalem Freestyles” and “Nirvana in Gaza,” in 2020.

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Abdelhamid adopted the stage name Saint Levant for his musical persona. He explained in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar that he chose the name to reflect his Palestinian and French roots, saying, “ ‘Saint Levant’ is derivative of Yves Saint Laurent, which is a high-fashion brand, but also Levant. The Levant is a region of the world that includes Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria.…Levant in French means levant, which is like ‘the rising sun,’ and it’s a colonial term and I wanted to reclaim that.”

Saint Levant released his first EP, From Gaza, With Love, in 2023. The seven-track offering, which he called “an ode to the place where I spent the first seven years of my life,” earned praise for its vulnerable and soul-baring delivery.

In June 2024 he released his first full-length album, DEIRA. Named after the hotel his father had built in Gaza, which was destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War, the album expresses a sense of loss and longing for his homeland. Featuring his signature fusion of traditional and contemporary sounds and contributions from such notable artists as Kehlani and Cheb Bilal, the album ensured Saint Levant’s growing presence on both the Arabic and the global music scenes.

Saint Levant followed up with Love Letters, an EP released on Valentine’s Day 2025 that is composed of six tracks serving as individual love letters to important people and places in Saint Levant’s life. He separated the EP into two sides: Side A features love letters written from a more personal perspective and incorporates traditional Arab and North African folk sounds. The love letters on side B are written from the perspective of his more public persona, Saint Levant, and feature modern pop and Arab sounds.

In addition, Saint Levant has released numerous singles on a variety of streaming platforms. He has maintained a steady presence on both the Billboard Arabic Artist 100 chart and the Billboard Arabic Hot 100 chart.

Activism and causes

Beginning in 2020 Abdelhamid ran a program with a classmate for two years that connected Palestinians in the diaspora with entrepreneurs in their home countries for investment purposes. In early 2022 Abdelhamid cofounded and launched the 2048 Fellowship with Stephani Moukhaiber, CEO of Al Rawiya magazine, to provide funds for Palestinian artists and creators. Originally conceived as a yearlong, monthly grant program, the fellowship was renamed the 2048 Foundation, as it continues to fund projects and provide mentorship to creatives. The initiative was so named to pay tribute to the future centenary of the Nakba.

At times Abdelhamid has faced pressure and criticism for being outspoken about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. In 2023, after he was selected as GQ Middle East magazine’s man of the year, he said during his acceptance speech: “They told me not to speak about Palestine if I won this prize tonight. But first, you cannot censor me, and secondly, I cannot stay silent while more than 8,000 Palestinian children have been murdered by the Israeli occupation that has been going on for 75 years.…This prize is for them.”