Issam Alnajjar had only recently first picked up a guitar when his cover of Frank Sinatra’s "Fly Me To the Moon" spread throughout social media in 2019. The then-teenager had started playing music as an escape; Alnajjar’s family had recently relocated from Jordan to America, but he wasn’t immediately able to join them. Alone in his room, he relied on his guitar as comfort and distraction, adding other covers to his Instagram and YouTube pages. Quickly, the views piled up and Alnajjar had become an "artist" — with all the bold adventure, excitement, and expectations that came with it.
In 2020, just as he was about to join his family, the COVID pandemic delayed Alnajjar's move and extended his isolation. Again, music freed his heart, though by now refocused on writing his own songs. The Jordanian-Palestinian dug into the work, inspired both by the traditional music of his childhood and the ultra-gloss pop of artists like The Weeknd. His first big hit, "Hadal Ahbek," took hold on TikTok in late 2020, leading to a deal with Universal Arabic Music. A full album followed, the sublime BAREE? racking up more than 1.5 billion streams around the world.
After that album’s success, the whole world shifted for Alnajjar. He relocated for five years to Los Angeles, reunited with his family and further exploring the intersection of Middle Eastern sounds and Western pop stylings. That culminates in Night in Cairo, out Oct. 17. The sophomore album was dedicated specifically to the Egyptian audiences that he found particularly supportive.
"Egypt has had art and music for thousands and thousands of years, such a rich history, and I grew up listening to that music," he tells GRAMMY.com. "I love them so much, and I’ve performed there, and they've been such an amazing crowd."
The album thrillingly pairs Middle Eastern instrumentation with Western pop production, Alnajjar’s sincere, sterling vocals delivering deep emotion, love and heartbreak stretched into bursts of grandiose, vibrant color. Ahead of his album release, Alnajjar discussed the growing audiences for Middle Eastern music, the appeal of Frank Sinatra, going viral in isolation, and the "brainrot" memes that have spawned from the virality of "Hadal Ahbek."
This feels like a massive moment for you, with new music right around the corner!
I am so excited. I took a two-year break from making music, but it feels like it's time. I learned so much over the past two years.
Considering how much change and challenge you’ve faced, it makes sense that you needed time to process and let it work through you creatively.
Of course. For me, because it happened to me, it's normal. Artists, whenever they start their career, they take a year, maybe two years of experimenting with music, trying stuff, failing. I had no musical background. This is just me on the guitar being vulnerable, shy. [Laughs.] I just started my career from like 100, you know what I mean? I skipped those learning phases. Then I got signed.
I have a lot of people around me that have been in the industry for 20 years. They know what they're doing. It wasn’t me taking all the lead and, like, trusting my vision and my ability. I was in such a weird place where people were expecting a lot from me — not my team, though. [Universal Arabic Music founder Wassim "Sal" Slaiby] was telling me, "Hey, listen, it's a journey. What we do here is artist development." The thing that always touches me was he said, "I've been waiting for you for four years." He had the idea of having this Arabic label, and building the audience and the fan base, and that’s where the expectations came from. [The team] saw it a million times.
But did you see it?
Hell no. I was just happy that I'm making music for a living. It didn't feel real because it was during COVID. It was just numbers.
We had a lockdown throughout the whole kingdom. They gave us until 6 p.m. to do whatever we wanted, so I would go to the mall with my friends because that is what we always did. I've always been the loner, the quiet one, because I lived by myself and that’s who I am. Sad little kid. But we went to the mall, and over 30 people were surrounding me. And I was like, OK. Maybe this could be something.
The fact that you were already getting that kind of reaction at home must have been a huge sign that you weren’t just making good music, but you were doing something authentic.
In the Middle East, it's been the same A-list artists for the past 20, 25 years. We would have some indie types of bands and artists. But [my music] made it possible for other artists and opened the door that [audiences] can hear something a little different. If I can do it, a lot of people can. Even on the business side, international labels are looking into investing in these artists.
Being young and the first [new artist to catch on] in a while, especially during that time, it gave a lot of artists hope. And I love that so much. We have good music, and being able to put my culture on a big stage on a global scale is so amazing to me.
Speaking of Egypt, you’ve dedicated this album to Middle Eastern audiences, and specifically your Egyptian fans.
Let me give you an example: Nancy Ajram; huge artist. She's Lebanese. Her whole career, she's been singing in an Egyptian accent. Egypt is the destination. It's always the destination. You know how if you make it in America you make it worldwide? If you want to make it in the Middle East, you have to have Egypt on your side. Thankfully, I've had it for a while. I think people are gonna be happy with this project and I hope they enjoy it.
When I was in L.A., it felt like I was kind of disconnected, and I wanted to reconnect with my roots, my people, our instruments, because it's so beautiful. And being able to do that — mixing it with modern pop, a global sound — it's not easy. It's such a challenge because our instruments are hard and our singing notes are hard.
Even tonally, you have to shift your expectations and your ear between what sounds right for traditional Egyptian music compared to some modern American pop.
Exactly. You ask people in L.A., "What's the most important thing in a song?" They’ll tell you the melody. But in the Middle East it’s the words. We've had so many poets and people just connect with the words more. So it was a tough challenge to do that.
Me and my project manager shared that vision [for this new album], and I actually connected with a Middle Eastern producer and worked on all of the songs together. His name is O.I.AM (One in a million), and he’s Persian.
There's two samples in the project. One is of Asmahan. She's legendary. The song that we sampled is a hundred years old, almost. She was so ahead of her time, she was sampling a Mariachi song. And I wanted to take that tempo — it's a very sad song, but we kind of made it sexy.
That reminds me of how a lot of people first found you, thanks to your viral cover of "Fly Me to the Moon." What was it about that song that stood out to you?
When I was living by myself, I was very alone. Music was always in the house, but I never really got into it. My brother actually gave me a pair of Beats headphones and, I'm not even kidding you, I would only take them off to charge them. They stayed on my neck and head for two years. So when I was alone, music was speaking to me and I was speaking to music, and this is when I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the artistry and talking about something in such a creative way, that was new to me.
I started listening to old music from the beginning to right now. And Frank Sinatra, for me, was like, Oh my God, amazing lyrics. At that time it was trending on TikTok; it took me four hours to just play it on the guitar because I was learning everything off of YouTube. So I released a video, and within the first hour or two it had like 3,000 views. I was like, Oh my God, this is amazing. If it hits 5,000, I'll make another video. I slept, woke up, and it was at 200,000 views. So I started learning more songs on TikTok, like Frank Sinatra, Elvis, the King of Pop Michael Jackson.
What is it about the guitar that helped you connect not only with your heritage, but also American pop?
A family friend actually came to me like, "Here, take my guitar. You're going to have a bunch of time on your hands and you’re going to need this." In my family, I've always been an entertainer. But when I had so much time in my hands ,I would spend eight to nine hours learning. And then I actually auctioned that guitar to raise money for kids that have cancer.
Being able to just focus on one thing and not just be sad about being alone. It's going to sound cliche, but it was actually the friend that I needed. I'm getting a little emotional, but it was such a hard time for me. I found my way. A lot of people take years to find their way, but I found myself in it.
Is that what brought you to "Hadal Ahbek?"
That was my first song. I think the reason behind that song's success is how innocent and real the lyrics were. The lyrics and the melody really connected with the region here, but when it crossed over, it was the [wordless melody]. Because there's no lyrics, you can sing in any language. I released that song just so I could sing with my friends when we're doing a campfire or whatever. And on the first day, I got the goal that I needed. It was about 10,000 views.
The lyrics, the chorus, is me saying, "Put your head on the pillow in my heart, there's no one like you." It's just real. It was an actual conversation on FaceTime during COVID. That song changed my life and it made a lot of things easier for me and my family. My goal with all of this is to give my family and myself experiences that we never thought we would have, and have enough stories to tell my kids.
Growing from there, did you have an overarching creative goal for the new album?
Definitely. I want to take this project on a big stage. The thing that I'm so confident in is my vocal ability. I have a really high range and I would love to showcase that.
The thing that we kind of lack in our region and in our shows, is people just go on stage and perform their music. I want to build a world. I want to make you feel everything, and it's choreographed. I'm taking this inspo from The Weeknd; I went to a bunch of his concerts and met him a lot, and whenever I was in any of his concerts it was like I was in his world. I want to take that and put it in our region. It's going to be amazing. I just want to be able to showcase the culture.
With my first album, I never really said this before, it's actually a storyline of meeting a girl…and it takes me a while to finish songs because everything is coming from me. I'm so proud of the first project, even though I didn't have experience on the mic. I had to learn a lot. Looking back at it, I was just a little kid trying some stuff out.
Let’s talk a bit about the first single for the new album, "ZAFFEH." I've seen zaffah used to describe a type of wedding dance, but is this related?
Zaffeh is actually a dance and type of music. It happens in graduations, it happens in weddings. The cool thing about it is that every country has their own type of zaffeh. When I was making the song, I gave [my producer] some different zaffeh songs to get some inspo, and he absolutely killed it. We have a mawwāl in the beginning, which means just singing some ah's something really traditionally pleasing, and then it goes into the zaffeh.
The type of zaffeh I used in this song specifically is Palestinian and Jordanian, but the lyrics are Egyptian and the production is Western [Laughs.]. And in the second verse, the drums turn into a Jersey beat, and it works so well with our drums. I'm so proud of this song. You can definitely, definitely hear the culture.
We filmed a video in Cairo, and in Cairo they have these parties that they always do in the streets where they put up lights and bring in a guy dressed as a gorilla, and they go crazy.
Why a gorilla?
I have no idea. But the thing that I love about the video is that this is actually the culture. And people in the video are actually people from the neighborhood that just saw us filming and went down and started dancing with us.
But every song is a different type of vibe that sounds familiar to the ears but is something really new. There's this modern Gen Z twist to it. "HAYATI" is a flowy type of song you would listen to in the car. "TA3ALA" is like a reggaeton, Spanish, sexy song. "AMARI" is probably the closest to my heart because I would say it's the realest song.
"AMARI" means my moon. I had a writer's block for a while, and my friend told me Coldplay were playing in L.A. so we had to go. I was crying throughout the whole set because of how real the music was. So simple, but yet so powerful. The guitarist Jae Green played on ["Amari"] and, literally, one take from him and we wrote the melodies. The lyrics just came. And then we hit up this orchestrator, Mark [Rodriguez], and he gave us something so dope for a 36-piece orchestra. My vocals on the song are just two live takes.
On the flip side, though, I'd be remiss to not ask about the new life "Hadal Ahbek" is having through memes. Mishearing Arabic lyrics as this brainrot slang? You've posted interacting with the meme, but how did it feel when you first saw that?
I feel like this song was just a gift from God.. I embrace the meme. People were shocked that I'm embracing it. I don't mind it. It's the Internet now. It's not even my song. They've been asking me to sing the… I want to say the brainrot version of it. But I’m going to let them wait a little bit.
Speaking of translating lyrics for other audiences, you have an English-focused song on the album too.
Yes, "POISONED". It’s actually about the past two years of me being in the industry, being young, and going through a lot. This is the only song on the project that I made for me. It’s the one where I’m angry. It feels dark and it's like me growing, and it shows the maturity coming from past projects into this project. I had to grow thick-skinned so I could protect myself, just embracing the poison at the end, embracing that sadness and that struggle.