Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Emaan Al-Zadjali. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Emaan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

I am Half Omani, Half White and Korean. I grew up in Oman for the majority of my life and have been perceived and misunderstood throughout the entirety of my life, even till this day.
As a third culture kid, it’s difficult to find and have a sense of “home” even at home. Whether that’s due to constantly traveling growing up, being put in environments where you look/talk/act different from others, not speaking the same language as most of your relatives.
It’s a struggle I face even today, and I’ve learned to put those feelings into my music and I’ve found an audience that feels seen through my music.

I’ve been releasing music under my name for 5 years now, but have been publicly performing and posting covers online since I was in high school and have gained the following from doing so. The following grew drastically due to the fact that I am Omani and was comfortable with publicly performing around the country as well as showing my face online, which is not very common for women over there. Upholding a pristine reputation is what everyone is told their whole lives over there and showing your face publicly/surrounding yourself with certain people/going to certain places could taint that image, not only for yourself, but for your entire bloodline.

Emaan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a music artist and songwriter with a passion for bringing community together through sharing stories and immersive cultural experiences.

My music falls within the realm of psychedelic melodic rap/trap soul. My biggest inspirations are 070 Shake, Don Toliver, James Blake and FKA Twigs. In recent years I’ve been incorporating more Arabic in my tracks as well.

Besides my music, In 2023 I started my company/collective called MJLS (pronounced mej-lis), a community events platform based in LA that hosts an array of creative events, ranging from artist showcases to poetry workshops to arabic club nights to movie screenings, all to promote MENA creatives in the diaspora.

We have an Internet presence as well as a physical presence here in LA that is growing exponentially! Our target audience went from predominantly people from the Middle East to people of the diaspora who’ve been searching for their sense of identity and culture that they feel they’ve lost living here in the states.

The community is ever growing in our events are ever evolving.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

When I was 15 I released videos of me singing 15 second acoustic covers of popular songs onto Instagram and slowly began attracting a following from there. It didn’t really blowup until I put up a video of me singing a song in Arabic for Omani National Day and it went VIRAL. Till this day I’l get recognized here and there for being the Omani girl that sings whenever I’m out and about in Oman.

My sound pivoted drastically from the acoustic Tori Kelly sound to heavily produced 070 Shake type vocals and the majority of my following stayed, however there definitely were a ton of people who unfollowed because I wasn’t singing solely in Arabic.

You just gotta write and put out what makes you proud and happy, so long as you’re not hurting anybody, you’re fine.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

That you’re not always going to make everyone happy. That you can’t live by anyone else’s image they have of you in their head. These people do not live your life and see your everyday.

Given that there aren’t many Omani women music artists that put their stuff out their publicly, I get given the speech of how I’m not representing an entire people. How all of what I say/do/act/wear is automatically a reflection of Omani people. Which is simply not true in the slightest. I can still represent where I’m from in the way I know how to without the insane amount of pressure to represent every Omani ever!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emaanzadjali/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUoQBQJ2bcs&list=PLyg_Li9_AFW6a9elhDkaCbBHXdIVKgjRN
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4QzSFQiZGDmpWXqy4vG7EX?si=ixAPDB89RFqea9Abv0tysA