music

“The first thing you learn as a Palestinian is that you’re probably going to die. You have to engage a little bit extra because life could be over in 10 minutes.” This quote from Sama’ Abdulhadi in an interview with the Guardian in early 2023 was one of the more arresting passages to be found in recent music journalism, and it was to gain a terrible new resonance just a few months later.

Abdulhadi is probably the most famous Palestinian in electronic music, a mantle she takes extremely seriously: “It’s a lot of pressure because I want to represent Palestine perfectly”, she has said. Thankfully she is a worthy ambassador, with a superb line in big-room techno full of charisma and dramatic flourishes. Her 2018 performance at Boiler Room's first date in Ramallah, Palestine's de-facto capital, went viral, and has currently been viewed 13 million times on Youtube. More recently, she contributed a relentless mix to the Fabric Presents series in November 2023, a listen to which will serve as excellent prep for this set.