Saint Levant has often cited fellow Palestinian rapper Shabjdeed as one of his heroes.
This week, that hero became a foe with the release of SLV, a hip-hop diss track taking aim at Saint Levant’s catalogue, image and, more contentiously, his public stance on the plight of Palestine.
With both artists astute students of hip-hop, the release could also be viewed as a deft marketing move, with Shabjdeed taking umbrage at their clashing gigs in Amman, Jordan, on August 13.
One thing is clear: this is not yet a rap battle, because that requires a response. At the time of writing, Saint Levant has kept his counsel despite fans clamouring for a response to Shabjdeed’s lyrical attack.
“I’m confused by you. I don’t understand you. You don’t convince me. Sometimes I respect your ability to execute your ideas, especially your focus on women,” Shabjdeed begins in the opening verse, alluding to the romantic and occasionally flirtatious lyrics in Saint Levant’s work before crudely questioning his Don Juan persona and how it conflicts with his public support for Palestine.
SLV follows Saint Levant’s latest single, Bahibek, a collaboration with Lebanese pop star Haifa Wehbe released last month. Shabjdeed presents such collaborations and Saint Levant’s work with fashion brands as forms of “pandering” in an artistic career he considers at odds with both Palestine and the wider region.
The apparent artistic spat raises more pertinent questions about the frustrations and internal doubts facing Palestinian musicians as they forge their own creative paths while keeping the plight of their homeland in the frame.
For more than a decade, musicians have described in interviews with The National how their personal experiences of Palestine complicate that balance.
Shabjdeed and Saint Levant are cases in point.
Based in Ramallah, Shabjdeed draws directly from life under occupation. His albums, including Sindibad El Ward and Sultan, use Palestinian dialect and black humour, and detail everyday restrictions imposed by the Israeli military on life in the West Bank.
Saint Levant approaches Palestine through the longing created by displacement. Born Marwan Abdelhamid in Jerusalem, he spent his first seven years in Gaza before growing up in Jordan and studying in the US. His relative freedom to move across borders is reflected in his music, where shifts between Arabic, English and French drive its cross-cultural appeal.
That said, it is hard to argue that Palestine does not feature prominently enough in his work. Before Very Few Friends made him internationally known in 2022, Saint Levant posted videos explaining Palestinian history and released songs including Jerusalem Freestyle. He later titled his EP From Gaza, With Love and built his 2024 album Deira around the Gaza hotel designed by his father, where he lived as a child. Israeli bombardment later destroyed the building.
Balancing the increasingly commercial leanings of his work with his staunch support for Palestine is harder than it looks.
Adnan Joubran of the Palestinian fraternal group Le Trio Joubran understands that difficulty, recalling how the trio’s attempt to separate music from politics became impossible to maintain as the destruction of Gaza intensified throughout the Israel-Gaza War.
“At the beginning, we were refusing to be called political. We were frustrated, like, why do you call us political? We are just musicians. But now, we cannot avoid it,” he said. “The tragedy is too big and silence is too dangerous. As Palestinians, even if we want to be just musicians, we cannot. The responsibility is there, and we have to carry it.”
Sometimes that responsibility is imposed on an artist, as Mohammed Assaf discovered during his victorious run on the second season of Arab Idol in 2013. His journey from Khan Younis refugee camp to the competition was depicted in Hany Abu-Assad’s 2015 biopic The Idol. The celebrations following Assaf's victory, from refugee camps in Gaza to Palestinian diaspora communities in North America and Australia, gave his career political meaning even before he had recorded an album.
“I will never forget the suffering of my people,” he told The National that year. “I live the Palestinian cause every day. I lived in a refugee camp in Khan Younis, trust me, I know how that feels. I am determined to use my music and fame to give justice to the Palestinian cause.”
Assaf maintained that commitment through Palestinian songs, speeches and benefit activities, even as much of his commercial repertoire consisted of Egyptian pop, Gulf compositions and romantic ballads.
Saint Levant is perhaps facing greater scrutiny because his appeal straddles platforms that few Palestinians do. It now spans regional and international audiences – as demonstrated by his 2024 Coachella performance – work with fashion house Prada and appearances at Paris Fashion Week. Each represents a milestone for an Arab artist, yet Shabjdeed alleges in SLV that such success has diluted the Palestinian plight within Saint Levant’s message.
This is an unfair purity test, particularly coming from a fiercely independent musician.
It is also out of tune with the vibrant music emerging from Palestinian artists, which spans myriad themes and emotions.
Gazan rapper Shamaly recorded half of his 2024 debut EP Bdl Faqed in Jabalia refugee camp before escaping to Egypt. Amid songs documenting explosions, displacement and the haunting spectre of death, Shamaly included the aching track Bastana Feek, inspired by someone he met in a shelter.
“It required a total shift in mindset because I realised I was writing a love song during a particularly intense period,” he told The National. “I met someone in the shelter, and we have remained friends. It made me reflect on whether feelings like love are relevant when the world is unstable.”
Palestinian-Jordanian singer Zeyne established herself through Asli Ana, a dabke-driven declaration of Arab and Palestinian identity. Her 2025 album Awda, however, was not filled with similar songs.
Instead, it placed that declaration within a deeply personal body of songs about topics including her mother’s illness, faith and mental health. There was no visible backlash from listeners expecting an album filled with resistance songs.
Lina Makoul has also argued for a wider emotional vocabulary in Palestinian and Arabic music. Her 2025 single Radiya explored contentment and the search for personal joy amid Palestine’s heartache, presenting resilience as a refusal to surrender all hope.
“I believe that art shapes the consciousness,” she said on The National’s music podcast Tarab. “If you don’t consume art, it’s very easy for you to become a robot that just repeats what the system wants you to repeat. So I want to liberate the mind, the soul, the heart. That’s my way of resisting.”
Perhaps the late Mahmoud Darwish said it best, as Samir Joubran recalled the lesson Le Trio Joubran received from Palestine’s most important poet while they toured together.
“He taught us the very important lesson of not to be Palestinian artists, but artists from Palestine,” Joubran said. “The difference is important. He said that to excel artistically, we need to be free from the stress and heartache of the situation in Palestine, which is never too far from our minds.”
