May it be as kind as possible for as many of you as possible...
01/01/2026
31/12/2025
Last day of the year 2025
I still check Facebook from time to time (without knowing why), and today it reminded me of posts I wrote for previous 'last days of the year'.
Ten years ago, I had so much hope, strength and belief that we could make this world go round again...
I posted this song on all my social media on 31 Dec. 2016:
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Then on 31 Dec. 2018, I wrote these words:
>> Hello people... Last day of the year, right? I don't know for you but over here 2018 has been full of challenges and difficult people. Respect seems to have been lost somewhere between Macron's election and the Brexit referendum. Happily for me, it ended in a much brighter note! So all I want for 2019 is to work with kind, committed people and luckily I found them recently 🙂
But Iet's not forget that peace is a high value and that sometimes constantly fighting the fight ends in everyone losing... Sending GOOD vibes to everyone.
We'll only survive this messy world if we add our personal drop of love. And maybe we'll even succeed in changing it, sooner than later, I hope.
And I posted this song:
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How wrong was I? talking about peace, kindness, hope...
How did it all become so bleak???
Now that individualism, evil politics, war, crimes and hyper-capitalism have triumphed all over the four corners of our Earth, I often feel like I have been wrong about it most of my life...
Well, I'll just believe quietly in what remains of my heart...
27/12/2025
26/12/2025
Haya Zaatry - Yemken (Official Video) | هيا زعاترة - يمكن
English translation:
Maybe I sense that I’m a little Too heavy for you today Maybe it’s because I’m carrying the world The weight of the universe After all the miles we’ve crossed It makes no sense we’re still here Maybe my land has bled me dry Maybe I sense that I’m a little Too heavy for you today Maybe it’s because I’m carrying the world The weight of the universe After all the miles we’ve crossed It makes no sense we’re still here Maybe my land has bled me dry Oh… Oh… Maybe you feel you want to flee From the war, the pain, the loss Maybe we all know our lives have turned So did our dreams It’s not just the story of a city, the story of Bisan And of me realizing I can’t protect you Maybe we were made to live on a land whose tears became valleys Maybe our flowers don’t grow from the soil But from the walls From the eyes of children whose home collapsed on them And on my soul, too While my dream is to build my home in you Oh… Oh… Maybe I sense that I’m a little Too heavy for you today Maybe it’s because I’m carrying the world The weight of the universe After all the miles we’ve crossed It makes no sense we’re still here Maybe my land has bled me dry
Translated & Edited by: Sami Mushasha and Jamila Osman
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This project is supported by: AFAC – The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture – Music Grant 2024 A. M. Qattan Foundation – “Tahawolat” Grant 2025 HAYA ZAATRY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2025
23/12/2025
22/12/2025
To the return of the light!
22 December 2025
And here we passed the winter solstice! Cheers to more light and a shorter path to spring!!
20/12/2025
18/12/2025
The story behind the 'Lullaby' video
A visual story for a timeless piece of music
The video for the on-the-road-to-Christmas-nb-1 Palestinian single 'Lullaby', shared on Friday 12, was shot in Palestine by Palestinians and intends to offer a genuine vision of the land and its people.
It is aimed at raising profits for Choose Love’s Together For Palestine Fund supporting three Palestinian-led organisations: Taawon, Palestine Children's Relief Fund and Palestine Medical Relief Service.
The single is the result of a joint effort from a remarkable creative team, including Brian Eno, Nai Barghouti and the singer and music producer Lina Makoul.
Born in Ohio, United States, to Arab-Christian parents, the Palestinian-American singer-songwriter was later raised in Acre, Israel, studied in Haifa, then started in music in 2012, and rose to fame in a few years, now collaborating with the likes of Saint Levant. She is the one behind the song’s music video.
“I got a phone call from my very dear friend Nabil Elderkin, who was to creatively produce this music video asking me and my partner - the cinematographer Ashraf Dowani - to direct the video. We said yes right away,” Lina told me. Lina and Ashraf were actually preparing to shoot a music video for her latest song ‘Akka’, when she was contacted for ‘Lullaby’. But getting the chance to direct a music video for a song that wasn’t her felt like a calling.
“Especially when everything I do is already coming from a place of love for the homeland, for our people, and from the need to capture life the way I see it,” Lina said. “I knew the media is a double-edged sword: showing the atrocities Gazans and Palestinians are going through but also constantly portraying us as victims, so people around the world end up associating us only with rubble, victimhood, and pity. That’s just another layer of dehumanisation. So I wanted to show how stubborn we are,” she continued, “despite the sadness, grief, and fear, to show how beautiful we are when we interact with our land with our olive trees, our sea, our zaatar, our calamantina… our stubborn loyalty to life.”
She adds that when she works on music videos, she always starts from the psychology behind the lyrics, even if, this time, she did not write them or the music. “Then I go into camera movement through sound and production. Then come the colours I ‘hear’ the music in.” The short film was then filmed less in late November.
“Everything happened so fast. We had a tiny window of two days to prepare, cast, choose locations, build the crew, write the treatment and a shot-list, because I was booked for shows abroad, releasing a new song, and Ashraf had already committed to shooting a short film.” And it was really important to Lina to shoot all over Palestine.
“I’ve been touring a lot the past two years, and I realised so many people who’ve never been to occupied Palestine actually have no clue what it looks like because only the atrocities in Gaza make it to the news. You know, how for so many years the media trained our brains to associate Africa - the richest continent on this planet - with poverty and hunger? It feels like they're doing the same to Palestinians. I refused to contribute to this narrative where we’re not shown as a people being systematically separated from each other: geographically, psychologically, emotionally.”
The duo shot in Akka, Jerusalem, Deir Hanna, Lifta, and collaborated with filmmakers in Gaza. “Shoutout to Khaled Tuaima, Suhail Nassar, Nabil Al Hadhoud, and Mohamed Yaghi who executed the Gaza shoot in a single day, excellently,” Lina said.
A renewed traditional musical theme
The single includes participation of over 15 British and Palestinian artists. They said they came together to send this message of hope and solidarity to the place where the Christmas story originates. ‘Lullaby’ features vocals from Palestinian musicians Nai Barghouti and Lana Lubany, young Yemeni star Amena, and from the UK’s Brian Eno, Neneh Cherry and her daughter Mabel, Celeste, Dan Smith (from the band Bastille), Kieran Brunt (from Shards), Leigh-Anne, the London Community Gospel Choir, Nadine Shah, and more.
For Lana Lubany, it felt particularly important to work all together on this, “with these powerful voices, to keep the conversation going with what is happening in Gaza,” she told the media. For Eno, it was also about getting a song in Arabic, for Palestine, in the charts, number 1 or not, despite the current political climate in the UK.
‘Lullaby’ is indeed an adaptation of ‘Yamma Mweel El Hawa’, which means ‘Mama, sing to the wind’, a timeless Palestinian song about love, longing and resilience. It is still heard across the South West Asian region during weddings, street corners and even on TikTok feeds. It also speaks of the longing for homeland and freedom from occupation. This new version was thought as a “powerful and emotive reimagining of a traditional Palestinian lullaby”, according to the team.
To Eno, “after a year defined by unimaginable loss, grief and injustice, we want to end with an act of love for Palestine’s children.” ‘Lullaby’ thus reflects “their beauty, their longing and their hope,” he added.
The song includes some lyrics drawn from the work of celebrated Palestinian poet and author Mahmoud Darwish, based on an original concept from Es Devlin. This single is produced by Benji B, Kieran Brunt and Henri Davies, mixed by David Wrench and Valgeir Sidurðsson, and mastered by Matt Colton.
It was arranged and recomposed by Kieran Brunt and Nai Barghouti, with English lyrics written by Peter Gabriel. And the official single artwork was created by visionary Gazan painter Malak Mattar and inspired by her piece ‘Shelter’ with additional artwork by Cameron JL West.
“Every person who worked on the music did a phenomenal job eternalising Palestinian folklore,” Lina told me, “and using Palestinian art as a bridge for unspoken pain.”
Major fundraising effort
For this release, Together For Palestine have a bold aim: to reach Christmas nb#1 and raise urgent, life-saving funds for Gaza’s children and Palestinian affected by the ongoing bombardment and genocide.
“If we rally together and download it, we have a real shot at landing Christmas nb#1 - and turning that moment into vital life-saving support for Gaza’s families,” Eno said.
For the London-based music sensation Mabel, it is intended to be “a traditional lullaby in tribute to the mothers and children of Gaza means the world. I hope you feel the strength in our voices.”
The team behind Together for Palestine already organised a game-changing fundraiser for Palestinians in the form of a cultural event hosted at the Arena Wembley, in London, on 17 September 2025, which saw over 150 cultural figures from across the globe participate and raised over £1 million.
According to Lina, T4P’s Wembley concert created a whole movement. “It shifted what “charity” events look like.
It made them dynamic, where people participate not from guilt but from actual participation. It changed how activism is perceived, reconnecting it with art the way it was before capitalism took over music.”
Asked if she expects the single to reach #1 for Christmas, she simply replied: “Hell yes.”
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Links:
Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G957oaAZwhc&t=486s
To order https://lnk.to/T4PLullabyInsta?channel=PR
https://togetherforpalestine.bandcamp.com/album/lullaby?channel=PR
12/12/2025
'Lullaby' - the video
All profits from the single go to the Together for Palestine Fund, held by Choose Love (charity no. 1177927), to support Palestinian-led organisations Taawon, Palestine Children's Relief Fund and the Palestine Medical Relief Society.
TO BUY ‘LULLABY’ https://linktr.ee/T4Plive
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Palestinian and British musicians team up again for charity single ‘Lullaby’
The team behind the sold-out Wembley concert Together For Palestine - that raised over £2 million for Gaza in Palestine - announces a charity single ‘Lullaby’.
It will be released on 12 December, and distributed by EMPIRE, a global independent distributor, record label, and music publisher. All profits raised from the release will go to Choose Love’s Together For Palestine Fund supporting three Palestinian-led organisations Taawon, Palestine Children's Relief Fund and Palestine Medical Relief Service.
A renewed traditional musical theme
“This lullaby from our Palestinian musical heritage has been with me since early childhood. Today, it returns at a much-needed time as a reminder of what Palestinians will never lose: hope, defiance, beauty, and dignity,” Palestinian musician Nai Barghouti explained.
'Lullaby’ is indeed an adaptation of ‘Yamma Mweel El Hawa’ [which means ‘Mama, sing to the wind’], a timeless Palestinian song about love, longing and resilience. It is still heard across the South West Asian region during weddings, street corners and even on TikTok feeds.
It also speaks of the longing for homeland and freedom from occupation. The new version was thought as a “powerful and emotive reimagining of a traditional Palestinian lullaby”, according to the team, and includes participation of over 15 British and Palestinian artists.
They said they came together to send this message of hope and solidarity to the place where the Christmas story originates.
'Lullaby' features vocals notably from Palestinian musicians Nai Barghouti and Lana Lubany, young Yemeni star Amena, and the UK’s Brian Eno, Neneh Cherry and her daughter Mabel, Celeste, Dan Smith (from the band Bastille), Kieran Brunt (Shards), Leigh-Anne, the London Community Gospel Choir, Nadine Shah, and more.
For Brian Eno, "after a year defined by unimaginable loss, grief and injustice, we want to end with an act of love for Palestine’s children.”
‘Lullaby’ thus reflects “their beauty, their longing and their hope,” he added. The song includes some lyrics drawn from the work of celebrated Palestinian poet and author Mahmoud Darwish, based on an original concept from Es Devlin. This single is produced by Benji B, Kieran Brunt and Henri Davies, mixed by David Wrench and Valgeir Sidurðsson, and mastered by Matt Colton.
It was arranged and recomposed by Kieran Brunt and Nai Barghouti, with English lyrics written by Peter Gabriel. The official single artwork was created by visionary Gazan painter Malak Mattar and inspired by her piece ‘Shelter’ with additional artwork by Cameron JL West.
Major fundraising effort
For this release, Together For Palestine have a bold aim: to reach Christmas nb#1 and raise urgent, life-saving funds for Gaza’s children and Palestinian affected by the ongoing bombardment and genocide.
“If we rally together and download it, we have a real shot at landing Christmas nb#1 - and turning that moment into vital life-saving support for Gaza’s families,” Eno said.
For the London-based music sensation Mabel, it is intended to be “a traditional lullaby in tribute to the mothers and children of Gaza means the world. I hope you feel the strength in our voices.”
The team behind Together for Palestine already organised a game-changing concert and fundraiser for Palestinians in the form of a cultural event hosted at the Arena Wembley, in London, on 17 September 2025, which saw over 150 cultural figures from across the globe participate and raised over £1 million.
Livestreamed on YouTube, viewed by hundreds of thousands around the world, the filmed version of the event will be available on YouTube from 19 December, featuring additional unseen material, new camera angles and an all-new director's cut.
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Read also my piece on the Together for Palestine concert here:
https://www.newarab.com/features/together-palestine-story-behind-artist-solidarity
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‘Lullaby’
Released this Friday 12th December
10/12/2025
My interview with Congolese artist Sammy Baloji
In our last episode of Spotlight on Africa of this year, I explore perspectives on African history - from across the continent with UNESCO, which has just released the final three volumes of its General History of Africa, and from the Congo, through the insights of artist and filmmaker Sammy Baloji.
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You can also read a version of our conversation here:
INTERVIEW
DRC artist's film sheds light on link between colonialism and climate change
Congolese artist Sammy Baloji’s first documentary The Tree of Authenticity fuses images and sounds, and features a talking tree as its narrator, to highlight the connection between Democratic Republic of Congo’s colonial past and the present-day climate crisis. I asked the artist what inspired him to branch out into this new medium.
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