If you’re in any danger of backtracking into a situationship, don’t listen to Dua Saleh’s music. By any means necessary, steer clear of their single, ‘want’, because we fear its addictive beats mask the hypnotic repetition in their lyrics, which compel you to confront your desires (“I know I probably shouldn’t / but I think I want, want, want to”). You’ve been warned.
You might recognise Dua as Sex Education’s Cal Bowmen, but if you haven’t delved into their music yet, you’re missing out big time on tracks charged enough to lead you back to your ex. The Sudanese-American artist knows no bounds: a poet, activist, musician and performer melding their experiences into genre-blurring tracks that redefine what it means to create. With a distinctly real voice that treads terrains of love, identity and resilience, Dua’s artistry is a revelry of authenticity and vulnerability.
Born in Kassala, Sudan, to a family with Tunjur heritage, Dua’s childhood was marked by upheaval. When they were just five, Dua fled the Sudanese Civil War with their family to the American Midwest, settling in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Lost with English immersion, Dua’s mother tongue was actually originally Arabic—and the language continues to permeate much of their music today. Raised in a Muslim household, the actor and musician had a turbulent relationship with tradition, often feeling at odds with societal expectations of what a Muslim should embody.
Dua found their voice in poetry at an early age, nourished by their mother’s scripture readings and later redefined through spoken-word performances. The latter garnered hundreds of thousands of views through the platform Button Poetry, known for their viral videos of slam poetry performances. It was around this time that Dua also became deeply entrenched in activism in their community, which was marked by systemic injustice. In high school, they led a walkout against the school-to-prison pipeline, galvanised by an awareness beyond their years of the challenges faced by marginalised people in their neighbourhood. This consciousness shapes their work to this day, with Dua frequently addressing social themes in their music in the midst of their reflections on identity, love and resistance.
Their debut EP, Nūr, released in January 2019 by AGAINST GIANTS, met massive acclaim, followed by the release of their second EP, Rosetta, in 2020 and CROSSOVER in 2021 – together, they’ve reached over 94 million streams to date. Their forthcoming album, I SHOULD CALL THEM, was only just released in October of 2024. The album is the first body of work that Dua has dropped since their contribution as a co-writer for Travis Scott’s UTOPIA track ‘MY EYES’. It’s a convergence of sounds—electronic indie-pop courting R&B—and the album is an introspective venture into Dua’s grasp of love’s dualities: joy and heartbreak, strength and vulnerability. It’s distinctly shaped by an overarching tone of environmental anxieties. An exciting slew of collaborations with artists like Gallant, serpentwithfeet, and Sid Sriram give it that much more versatility.
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