Marwan Abdelhamid (Arabic: مروان عبد الحميد; born October 6, 2000),[1][2] known as Saint Levant (French:[sɛ̃ləvɑ̃]; Arabic: سانت ليفانت), is a Palestinian singer-songwriter and rapper.[3] A multilingual artist, he is best known for his song "Very Few Friends".
Early life and education
Abdelhamid was born in Jerusalem during the Second Intifada to a half-Algerian, half-French mother, Maria Mohammedi, and a half-Palestinian, half-Serbian father, Rashid Abdelhamid, who were both raised in Algeria. His father is the son of a Serbian medical doctor and a Palestinian from Safad who was expelled as a child in 1948 and studied engineering in Yugoslavia, and has worked as an architect, hotel entrepreneur, DJ and film producer; his mother worked for UNRWA. He has a younger brother, named Khaled. Shortly after his birth, the family joined his paternal grandparents in the Gaza Strip, where his parents built a 22-room beachfront hotel in Rimal, named "Al Deira" and based on an architectural project by his father. Abdelhamid spent his childhood primarily there, attending the American International School, until the 2007 Battle of Gaza, after which his family relocated to Amman, Jordan.[a] He described the time spent in Gaza as "the best years of [his] life".[10]
Abdelhamid took up the passion for music from his father and his maternal grandmother, a music teacher, studying piano and saxophone.[2][9] Growing up, he communicated in French at home, English at school, and Arabic at the Palestinian refugee camp of Al-Wehdat, where he played football with the local team after school.[4][7]
In 2018, aged 17,[1] Abdelhamid moved to the United States to pursue a bachelor's degree in International Relations at the University of California, Santa Barbara, from which he graduated in 2022.[4][11]
Career and activism
Before taking on the name Saint Levant (a pun on "Yves Saint Laurent" and "Levant"),[1][12] Abdelhamid wrote "Jerusalem Freestyle" and "Nirvana in Gaza", both of which discussed political issues. Around the same time, Abdelhamid began posting videos on TikTok in which he discussed Palestinian history, as well as commentary on toxic masculinity in Arab culture. Shortly after, he co-founded GrowHome, which connects Palestinian entrepreneurs with individuals who can help fund their projects.[8][13] In early 2022, alongside Stephanie Moukhaiber, he started the 2048 Fellowship – a project providing financial support and mentorship for Palestinian creatives; its name, which was changed to "2048 Foundation" in 2024, references the 100th anniversary of the Nakba.[8][9][14]
In November 2022, Saint Levant released his trilingual rap track "Very Few Friends", which was streamed approximately 2 million YouTube views in one month.[3] The song soon became popular on TikTok and Instagram.[11]
Saint Levant is outspoken on the struggle in Palestine, telling Harper's Bazaar:[1]
"Everything that I do is Israeli-focused and based on the Palestinian cause and struggle, doing a lot of contextualizing [...] because I came to America, man, and I realized that a lot of people thought that [...] it's a conflict between these two equal[s who] just hate each other for some reason, [that] Palestinians just hate Israelis. And what people don't understand is that it's 80 years of occupation and oppression and displacement and ethnic cleansing so I think it's very important to just push that forward always and I try to do it through the music; I try to do it through my actions, and everything that I do."
Following the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war, Saint Levant has stated that a sense of "survivor's guilt" has contributed to shaping his artistic production.[19] He identifies as a feminist.[7]
Abdelhamid is a Muslim.[21][22] He lives in Los Angeles, though he regularly returns to Amman.[3] Since 2023, he has been in a relationship with French-Haitian singer Naïka.[2][23]
