Marwan Abdelhamid (Arabic: مروان عبد الحميد; born October 6, 2000),[1][2] known professionally as Saint Levant (French:[sɛ̃ləvɑ̃]; Arabic: سانت ليفانت), is a Palestinian singer-songwriter and rapper. A multilingual artist, he is best known for his song "Very Few Friends".
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, 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.[2][3][4][5] He has a younger brother, named Khaled.[2]
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.[3][4][6][7][8] He described the time spent in Gaza as "the best years of [his] life".[9]
Abdelhamid took up the passion for music from his father and his maternal grandmother, studying piano and saxophone.[2][4][5][10] 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.[10][11]
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.[11][12]
Career
Before taking on the name Saint Levant (a pun on "Yves Saint Laurent" and "Levant"),[1][13] 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.[8][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,[12] 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.[15]
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.[20] Three days later, he featured alongside Lourdes Leon in a promotional video for Yves Saint Laurent and Peter Park's new omakase restaurant Sushi Park Paris.[21]
Artistry and activism
Early in his career, Abdelhamid co-founded GrowHome, which connects Palestinian entrepreneurs with individuals who can help fund their projects.[8][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.[4][8][22] 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.[23] He identifies as a feminist.[10]
In February 2025, pro-Israel groups and media criticized Yves Saint Laurent's collaboration with Abdelhamid as a partnership with an "antisemite" (reportedly for "anti-Jewish statements" which included support for the attacks against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in November 2024), and called for boycotting the brand.[21][24]
Abdelhamid is a Muslim.[26][27] 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][28]
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