- Friday 4 July
From Gaza With Love was the apt title of Saint Levant's debut EP from 2023. Although the rapper behind the name Marwan Abdelhamid is a citizen of the world with a French-Algerian mother and a Serbian-Palestinian father, there is no doubt that he considers Gaza his spiritual home.
He grew up there until he was forced to flee to Jordan in 2007. He has since settled in Los Angeles, where he has established himself as an indispensable representative of Arabic hip hop, having already played major festivals such as Montreux Jazz Festival and Coachella.
Saint Levant mixes poetry in Arabic, French and English, and musically he is also an eclectic, elegantly blending traditional Arabic music, hip hop and R&B. Out of this web of cultural and linguistic references, Saint Levant tells a deeply personal story while using his voice to speak about burning political issues.
The intertwining of the personal and the political can be seen on his 2024 debut album, Deira, named after a hotel that his father designed but which was bombed to pieces by the Israeli army in 2023. In Saint Levant's music, the hotel is re-erected as a symbol of a free Palestine, and now he brings his gripping songs to Roskilde Festival.
