Discover MUSTAFA
@mustafathepoet
Mustafa shares his first single of the new year, “Imaan,” alongside a self-directed music video that stars Imaan Hammam, creative direction from Ramy Youssef & co-direction from Nabil Elderkin. The single is his first for new label Jagjaguwar and follows his 2023 release “Name of God” and his critically acclaimed 2021 project When Smoke Rises. Alongside “Name of God,” “Imaan” serves as the second taste of Mustafa’s forthcoming debut album, which is set for release later this year.
Featuring backing vocals from Snoh Aalegra, “Imaan” marries Mustafa's Sudanese influences with American folk for a wholly singular sound. Against the steady strum of an acoustic guitar and a sample from Sudan's Abdel Gadir Salim, the song delivers a sincere tribute to how culture and God can stand in the way of love while trying to find a way to God that can protect it.
Speaking on the track, Mustafa shares:
‘Imaan’ is a love song between two people in search of God and purpose. It’s about longing for all that we don’t have evidence of. Two Muslims journeying through their love of borderless Western ideology and how it contradicts with the modesty & devotion in which they were raised. ‘Imaan’ sonically represents this tussle too - the Sudanese strings and Egyptian oud woven into the bed American folk chords and drums. This tapestry, this collision is the song, is the romance, is the person Mustafa is. How it’s never enough, or too much. The song sits in the grey that people of faith are afraid to live in, but identify with. It’s about the way faith swings beneath Mustafa and Imaan like a rope. How cultural tension and bias and racism can inform and dismember romance.”
