The first time I heard a song by Saint Levant, only three years ago, was in a world that does not exist any more. Gaza’s buildings were intact, as were its schools and roads and markets and mosques. My home city of Khartoum in Sudan was standing, as it had for centuries. Back then, I could scroll for fun, not in dread. I could stumble, say, in late 2022, upon an arresting clip on TikTok of a song by an Arab artist with a pun for a name; Saint Levant, a play on Saint Laurent – the icon of western style had been Arabised in homage to the Middle East’s Levant region.

I began to see the same song all over my social media. In the video, Saint Levant, then 22, is in a white vest and brown trousers. A gold pendant chain dangles on his chest, a tattoo encircles his left arm. He starts by rapping in English, telling the woman he is wooing that “he’s not toxic, he’s broken baby”. And then, the twist, as he switches to Arabic, then French, then English again. Like a wholesome boy next door, he tells her to send his regards to her grandmother and her brother. Then says that he wants to make her forget about her ex, he wants her overthinking all her texts, he wants the neighbours to hear her yell. “Lover boy Levant is back in the building,” he declared.

What we had here, was a certified fuckboy. Someone in the chaste Arabic music scene talking publicly about sex and dating, rather than the usual coy flirtation or yearning. Within weeks, the song, Very Few Friends, had racked up millions of listens. But still, Saint Levant remained an enigma. From the lyrics, it was hard to place where he came from. I assumed he was Lebanese, the spiritual home of the Arabic Francophone lover boy. Then I discovered that he is Palestinian. This made him even more of a curio in the mainstream Middle Eastern pop scene, one dominated by Egypt and Lebanon.

In March 2023, an album arrived, From Gaza, With Love. It established Saint Levant’s roots, but remained in the trilingual chat-up pop genre. It was largely unremarkable, and I filed Saint Levant away in my mind as a one-hit wonder. Then in April 2023, war erupted in Sudan, and death, fear and escape from bullets and bombs was visited on home and family. I forgot about Saint Levant, as I forgot about all music, all art, all entertainment. Six months after the start of the war in Sudan came 7 October, and another war gathered an unstoppable momentum.