Saint Levant has been ruminating on his identity lately. “I want the world to know Marwan,” he says, leaning his head against the wall of his Paris hotel.
The 24-year-old singer, whose real name is Marwan Abdelhamid, has become particularly interested in the divide between Marwan, the man, and Saint Levant, the burgeoning superstar. He explores that separation on his new EP, Love Letters, out today: While the A-side, which takes Marwan’s perspective, is defined by its Arab and North African folk sound (“inspired, really, [by] my Algerian and Palestinian roots,” Abdelhamid explains), the B-side assumes Saint Levant’s point of view, with a sound he describes as “more poppy, ’80s Arab.” Both feature his trilingualism, with Abdelhamid switching between English, Arabic, and French.
Alongside the EP, Abdelhamid has also dropped a music video for “Diva,” one of the B-side tracks, which was filmed in Algeria, where his parents were raised. Against a synthy ’80s beat, Saint Levant is seen chasing a lover through palatial villas and along the palm tree-lined Algerian coastline, trying to win her back as Marwan.
“When you think of beauty and luxury, why do you only think of Italy or France?” he wonders aloud. “We really wanted to portray the beauty of Algeria as a whole. It was a super-intense shoot, five 12-, 15-hour days, but the most fun ever.”
The “Diva” video tells the story of Marwan’s struggle to strike a balance between himself and his alter ego, risking the loss of a lover frustrated by Saint Levant’s fame. Yet the only real difference between his two sides, Abdelhamid clarifies, is Saint Levant’s veneer of confidence. “I never go and introduce myself as Saint Levant, but sometimes I feel like I do need a little persona to do things that Marwan would be too shy to do,” he says. “For me, that stuff is funny. Because I grew up in a super judgmental society, I still am a little bit shy, but then Saint Levant is going to go do choreography in front of 15,000 people.”
Abdelhamid is at an itinerant point in his life. He has been living out of a suitcase for the past year and a half, performing at Coachella, sitting front row at Saint Laurent and Prada during Paris Fashion Week, and being named an “artist to watch” by the Grammys. Still, both his upward trajectory and his constant movement have had their downsides. “I love my friends, but they’re all so spread out across the world,” he says. “This year I’m trying to get into more group chats.”
It’s possible that by exploring the division between himself and Saint Levant, Abdelhamid is also examining the rapid changes in his career. “I’m trying to stay true to myself as I grow,” he says.
But regardless of what else he has going on, he can always count on one person to keep him grounded: his mother. “You think my mom’s going to call me Saint Levant, bro?” he says. “That’s crazy.”
