Sudanese-Canadian poet and singer/songwriter Mustafa has released the song “Gaza Is Calling,” which was written in 2020 about a childhood friend from Gaza and the violence he faced “that followed him from Gaza like a cold wind.” It comes with a video directed by Israeli-French actress and director Hiam Abbass that depicts life for children living in refugee camps in Palestine and stars Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid and Gazan rapper MC Abdul. Proceeds from the song will benefit the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.
Mustafa says:
“Gaza is Calling” is about my first experience with heartbreak in friendship. I was 11 when I met this boy from Gaza. We were inseparable. With him I shared one of the deepest loves I’ve ever known, he grew up alongside me in a housing project in Toronto. And not even this love was a match for the violence we were up against; the one in our new home, the one that followed him from Gaza like a cold wind. In the end it was all the bloodshed between us that didn’t allow us to see each other without tears appearing, and one of the last notes he sent to me was about how we would continue on in another life.
The string sample is the Arabian nostalgia that we share, the autotuned Arabic I sing is the balance we tried to reach being boys of cultural empires in a small hood, and the Oud is the instrument of our homelands, Sudan and Palestine.
I reached out to Bella in 2022 about the “Gaza is Calling” short film. I wrote a story about a grief that meets you on whatever land you escape to. In it we follow Bella Hadid and Mc Abdul of Gaza as they journey through their grievances. A parallel story of Israa Ahmed and her younger brother plays out. Israa and her brother engage in the ruins & danger of a refugee camp in Palestine as Bella and Abdul engage with memorabilia & guilt in the western world. Hiam Abbas directs. Israa and her brother are still in this camp in Jenin, Palestine today. The hope is that this serves as a stark reminder that every path is ours, every child is ours, & every war is ours to answer for & speak against.
“Gaza Is Calling” is out now via Jagjaguwar, and his first album for the label is set to arrive later this year. Here’s the new song and video: