It all started when I was sitting with my mum in our balcony back in Cairo, bouncing stage names back and forth. She’s the one who thought up Felukah. We were looking for a word in Arabic that would be easily pronounced in the West—the philosophy around the name unfolded organically after that. Just like a felucca that’s sailing along the river, I want to embody an ebb and flow in my verse. Artistically and psychologically, I choose to stay open and explore where the wind takes me… it’s a very peaceful paradigm that I write in. Even if the emotion I’m grappling with is unkind or un-pretty, the paradigm itself is rooted in authenticity and nature.

To me, the new nile river way of thinking is all about vision. There is soul and drive embedded in that vision. It’s time to address real issues in the various systems we subscribe to, and to remember that we can create realities for us, by us. Commentary and art that is for us, by us. Process is just as important as product, and I’m ready as ever to share both with the world.

Cairo is home and that goes without saying. I was born and raised there— I only moved out to New York in 2017. Nonetheless, it’s crazy how the city took me in and lifted me up almost overnight. As time progressed, I came to learn myself as an Arab woman in a new context, and it’s been very refreshing for my psyche. It has also burdened my psyche, because I naturally grew less attached to my Egyptian roots. That’s why I choose to claim the space in between as where I truly belong. I am this, that, and neither at the same time. A true daughter of the universe. I like to think my work taps into that hybridity by nature.

Felukah is an essence  — a way of being, as well. I hope people can connect to my music in whichever way feels natural to them, however it resonates. Music that’s been created from one heart is meant to travel straight to another. Artists create so that people can inhabit that creation as a world of its own; that’s what I hope to inspire in people on this journey. That level of trust.

Ahh, that fills me with so much love. I’m glad people are receiving the hybridity of what we do around here. I love jazz, hip hop, R&B and so much else. What’s not to love about good music? I’ve got e-girl rap energy in me and indie folk tendencies. I’m here for all of it. The fact that people are catching onto this genre-less future is very motivating.

Damn. Yeah, it wasn’t super pretty. I think I started making music to release energy that had built up over the course of that relationship and ones before it—I was just really excited about exploring my feelings through art. Writing, rapping and singing about heartache made it far more relatable and digestible to me and the people around me. We all benefited from turning that pain into power.

At the moment, my favourite song is Neighborhood, recently. It’s the first single of many from my upcoming album and I can’t wait for people to dive into this new world that sucked me in both musically and lyrically. I’ve got a lot in store and Neighborhood is the perfect intro to it all.

Most of what we know as history was told from the perspective of men in power. Where is the documented lived experience of women and girls? Social-climbing, working class, average women? What about women in power? What about women who have been silenced by society, their culture or family? When I experience joy, I am experiencing it for all the women who have come before me and will come after me. How I talk, walk or dress is for the freedoms and liberties of the women in me screaming for change. Demanding that my presence be felt, my freedoms granted, and my boundaries respected.

Working on Mesh Hastanna with Rama was both fulfilling and challenging. I pushed myself to write that full Arabic track and also made sure to highlight real life examples of women facing injustices in the Muslim family. It was also emotionally strenuous diving into that role; but then, some of the most meaningful work is also the most difficult to create. Those feelings we’re too comfortable with pushing away rather than embracing; that’s what I sat with for this project and I’m so glad that I did.

Without a doubt there’s limitations—but these limitations are there to be pushed. I’ve had to deal with my own limitations and insecurities as a majorly underrepresented Arab woman in America, and as a Westernised Egyptian in Cairo. Creating my own blueprint for this music flex has been and continues to be difficult, but it is incredibly rewarding and motivating at the same time. I rise to the occasion of setting my own scene for this in between. It may have been seen as taboo or risqué to be a female rapper at some point but embedded in our culture is storytelling and folklore. If you look at it that way, we were born with material for the mic. I think having more women in the industry in Egypt and surrounding Arab countries will definitely enhance our collective sound emanating to the rest of the world.

Dream 23 was so beautiful to work on and present to the world. The music is vibrational, energetic and calm at the same time— a quality I've always admired about timeless hip hop and R&B records. We served old school flows on new school beats, lofi energy on heated topics like women's empowerment, self-discovery and cultural pride. The album lyrically and sonically explores space in the first half and earth in the other, validating the dream world and the real world equally. It is split in so many ways: sonically, culturally and spiritually. In this project I’m really trying to pay homage to both Egyptian roots and New York culture with each turn around the sun. Since I’d spun 22 times already, the album encompassed my own Dream 23. In another sense, the title can symbolise the sheer multiplicity of being; I could’ve chosen to chase one dream like rap, but instead it’s something more like 23 dreams— my interests multiply and deepen over time. I’m now 24 and thinking about the next dream.

It’s kind of funny how it started out; I thought I was turning 23 like a week away from my birthday last year. Did the math and it turned out I was turning 22 (just finished the 22nd solar spin) but in my mind, I was embarking on the 23rd year of life. So, wasn’t I turning 23? It’s all quite funny to me, how we’ve come to measure our time on this earth. The way I see it now, we’re all exactly our age +1 because we’re spinning on that +1 rotation right now. It’s just a fun and abundant way of looking at one’s existence, I feel.

Word on the street is it’s Felukah Szn. I’ve got some heat ready to be rolled out, so stay close to the boat. That’s all I can say.