Saint Levant

Marwan Abdelhamid was born on October 6, 2000^[1][2][3] in Jerusalem at the start of the Second Intifada to an Algerian-French mother, Maria Mohammedi, and a Palestinian-Serbian father, Rashid Abdelhamid, who were both raised in Algeria. His father, the son of a Serbian medical doctor and a Palestinian from Safad who studied engineering in Yugoslavia following his expulsion as a child in 1948, has worked as an architect, hotel entrepreneur, DJ and film producer; his mother, the daughter of a French female pianist and former music teacher at the French lycée in Algiers, has worked for UNRWA.^[3][4][5][6] He has a younger brother, named Khaled.^[3]

Shortly after Abdelhamid's birth, the family joined his paternal grandparents in the Gaza Strip, where his parents built a 22-room beachfront hotel in Rimal based on an architectural project by his father, named "Al Deira". He spent his childhood primarily there, attending the American International School, until the 2007 Battle of Gaza, after which he and his family relocated to Amman, Jordan.^{[4][5][7][8][9]} He has 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, studying piano and saxophone.^[3][5][6] 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.^[11]

In 2018, aged 17,^[2] 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.^[12][11]

Before taking on the name Saint Levant (a pun on French luxury fashion brand Yves Saint Laurent and his native Levant region),^[2][13] Abdelhamid wrote "Jerusalem Freestyle" and "Nirvana in Gaza", both of which discussed political issues. Around the same time, he began posting videos on TikTok in which he discussed Palestinian history, as well as commentary on toxic masculinity in Arab culture.^[9][14]

In November 2022, Saint Levant released his trilingual (English, French, and Arabic) rap track "Very Few Friends", which was streamed approximately 2 million YouTube views in one month.^[4] The song soon became popular on TikTok and Instagram,^[12][15] as well as on Spotify, where it peaked at number 1 in nineteen countries and number 2 in the United States, and reached number 2 on the Global Viral 50 chart.^[16][17]

In 2023, Saint Levant released the EP From Gaza, with Love. He was named among the 2023 "Men of the Year" by GQ Middle East.^[9] In 2024, he signed with Universal Arabic Music (UAM) and released, together with MC Abdul, "Deira", a song in the chaabi musical style of Algiers dedicated to his father's hotel in Gaza, which went destroyed in an Israeli bombing in January 2024 during Israel's war on Gaza; the song featured as the title track on his debut album Deira, containing duets with other artists like Cheb Bilal and Kehlani.^[7][8] Saint Levant performed at Coachella 2024,^[18] using his performance to bring awareness to the ongoing war taking place in Gaza.^[19] The following 22 May, he was part of the lineup of a Palestine charity concert at Zénith Paris, whose revenue was destined to Medical Aid for Palestinians.^[20]

On February 14, 2025, on the occasion of Saint Valentine's Day, Saint Levant released the EP Love Letters / رسائل حب, divided between a "side A" (Love Letters from Saint Levant) and a "side B" (رسائل حب من مروان, Rasāʾil ḥubb min Marwān), and featuring three unreleased tracks out of six.^[21] A deluxe edition of the album was released on August 22, 2025, featuring four bonus tracks which included three collaborations with North African artists – namely Tunisian rapper Nordo, Egyptian mahraganat singer Fares Sokkar, and Algerian band Babylone.^[22]

Following the release of the singles "Sabah El Ward" (صباح الورد)^[23] and "Nano",^[24] in early June 2026 Saint Levant was touring Australia. After playing to a sold-out crowd on June 4 at Melbourne Town Hall as part of Rising festival, he played at City Recital Hall in Sydney as part of Vivid Sydney, and then at Princess Theatre in Brisbane.^[25]

In May 2023, Saint Levant was chosen as Dior's first fragrance ambassador in the Middle East.^[26]

On February 17, 2025, he featured alongside Lourdes Leon in a promotional video for Yves Saint Laurent and Peter Park's new omakase restaurant Sushi Park Paris.^[27]

In July 2025, cosmetics brand Huda Beauty launched a new shade and scent of lip oil in partnership with Saint Levant, named "Kalamantina" (كلمنتينا, Arabic for 'clementine') after a track from his latest album.^[28][29]

In June 2026, Abdelhamid became Prada's first Palestinian brand ambassador, for the 2027 spring/summer season.^[30][31][32]

Saint Levant cites artists like Wyclef Jean, Cheb Khaled, Fairuz, Marwan Moussa, Lenny Kravitz, Michael Jackson, Stromae, Timbaland, Eminem, and Mika, as providing inspiration for his music.^[3][13][33]

Early in his career, Abdelhamid co-founded GrowHome, which connects Palestinian entrepreneurs with individuals who can help fund their projects.^[9][14] 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.^[5][9][34] Saint Levant is outspoken on the struggle in Palestine, telling Harper's Bazaar:^[2]

"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 Gaza war, Saint Levant has stated that a sense of "survivor's guilt" has contributed to shaping his artistic production.^[35]

Abdelhamid is a Muslim.^[40][41] He lives in Los Angeles, though he regularly returns to Amman.^[4]

In December 2023, he started a relationship with French-Haitian singer Naïka;^[3][42][43] the couple announced their breakup via Instagram on September 25, 2025.^[43][44]