Almost more than ten years ago, when the region’s music scene wasn’t as thriving or flourishing as it is now, Palestinian-Jordanian singer, songwriter and producer Dana Salah was, like many young artists at the time, caught in the tension of having to sacrifice her life in her homeland and move to the West to become a fully fledged musician.
In the neighbourhoods of Brooklyn, New York, under the pseudonym of King Deco, Dana began writing and releasing music in English, collaborating with prominent pop stars like Larzz Principato and Kinetics & One Love. Though her career was taking off, she recalls, “Something was always missing. My Arab voice wasn’t in the music I’m making.”
Coming off the global success of her single ‘Castaway’, a tale of a songstress leaving her homeland, with an unquenched thirst to reconnect with her Arab roots, she returned to Amman in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reclaiming her voice and taking ownership of her identity as an Arab female artist, Dana relaunched her career in Arabic with ‘Weino’, which led her to be selected as Spotify Arabia’s EQUAL ambassador, making her the first Palestinian-Jordanian female artist to be featured on Billboard in Times Square.
She has since carved a place for herself in the music scene with her signature falahi pop sound, which combines classical Arabic instruments with traditional Palestinian folklore and contemporary Western influences.
In a sitdown with SceneNoise, the singer talks ‘King Deco’, rediscovering her Arab identity, and the importance of using her music to mobilise change across the region - especially in the midst of the Israeli genocide in Palestine.
Watch the full interview here:
