The very first track and music video by Beirut-based independent artist Yal Solan that I encountered was Silent Fireworks — and it stayed with me. It was followed by La7ali, the first song she wrote in Arabic, where Yal reflects on the beauty of solitude and the quiet process of self-discovery. These songs stayed with me so deeply that I couldn’t help but speak with her — especially knowing that on December 8, she released Ya Enay Kafak Alam, a new and deeply important chapter in her work.

Ya Enay Kafak Alam, recorded and filmed during the war in Beirut, marks one of her most expansive and urgent statements to date. Drawing from a Sudanese folk song and infused with her own poetry, the track speaks to collective grief across the SWANA region — particularly the often-overlooked suffering in Sudan — and to a form of love that insists on witnessing rather than turning away.

We spoke with Yal about discovering her voice, moving from visual arts into music, and learning to inhabit the stage despite deep shyness and fear. She reflects on her earliest songs, written in English, and the intentional process of reconnecting with Arabic. Yal speaks about solitude as a necessity rather than an escape, music as a bodily and spiritual practice, and songwriting as a space for honesty rather than entertainment. She also shares why bearing witness — to personal pain, collective grief, and lived reality — has become central to her work.

— Yal, in one interview, you described yourself as a child who was always listening to music. You also mentioned feeling like a “black sheep” at school. Could you tell me more about that?

— Sure! I was a good student, just a frustrated artist. I showed up on time, studied a lot, got straight A’s, and aced everything — but something was missing. It felt like I had made a sacrifice by going into the system.

My first breakthrough was studying graphic design and animation. Why breakthrough? Because I come from a family of teachers, scientists, and engineers. I just knew I wanted to create.

Even then, in university, I didn’t know I could sing. Once, I saw a poster in the hallway asking, “Do you like music? Do you want to join a choir?” That changed everything. I auditioned, and she said, “You’re in — you’re a soprano.” That was a revelation.

It felt like discovering a deeper layer of art. First, I had explored the visual world — drawing, animation, moving images — but joining the choir changed everything. I had listened to music my whole life. It was my favourite pastime, sitting with a CD player, artists in my ears, connected to my emotions. But singing was different. There was something powerful about the communal experience of a choir — harmonising, rehearsing, breathing together.

Choir rehearsals became my favourite part of university. I would finish my courses and rush to rehearsal, record them, and feel this deep love growing — one that I knew wouldn’t stay confined to the choir.

At some point, I needed more. Eventually, I found myself in a voice workshop with one of the most inspiring artists in my life, who is now my mentor, Mike Massy. That workshop felt exactly right. It focused on body awareness, anatomy, breath, how the voice is produced, and self-massage — treating the voice as a human instrument. From there, I began taking voice lessons with him.

At the same time, I was writing — just for myself. Poetry in notebooks, without any expectation of becoming a singer. I was simply loving the process. But I realised, I already had a lot of writing. I had a voice that loved to sing. So I decided to stop holding back, put myself out there, and try to fill the gap I felt was missing.

— So being a “black sheep,” or being quiet and shy, could mean that performing was difficult for you. Was it hard at first?

— Oh yes. The first time I performed, my lips were literally shaking. I was grateful that so many friends showed up to support me, because what I was doing was different. In Beirut, not enough artists perform original work. There I was, sharing my poetry, blending it with soul — almost spiritual music — because I wanted us to connect to something grounded and inward, instead of just repeating what we already know.

I didn’t want to emerge as entertainment. I wanted to create a space where we could feel together, enjoy the power of music, and let it elevate us. I was really afraid, because I was bringing something new. Even my friends and family didn’t know this side of me. Suddenly, I was on stage singing, when I wasn’t even comfortable with public speaking back then.

Music has been a deeply transformative journey for me. Since I started performing, I have received so many messages from people saying, “Seeing you is inspiring.” It has helped others believe that they can do it too. So many people love to sing or have something to say, but they are afraid to put themselves out there because of imposter syndrome and fear.

— What was the very first song you ever wrote?

— That is a really interesting question. No one has asked me that before. I never imagined myself as someone who would write songs. I never even had the thought that I could write songs.

My very first song is actually just that — my first song, Silent Fireworks. I wrote it during COVID, on one of those late nights when the world feels incredibly magical in its quietness. Those are the moments when you can really hear your inner voice — no daily demands, no hustle, no noise. Just me, time passing, and that inner voice speaking.

Being alone in that space felt very powerful. That inner voice felt like a silent firework to me — something gentle, contained, but deeply alive. Silent Fireworks is still one of the most unfiltered pieces of work I have ever done. It is the black sheep of my songs. I released it exactly as it was. I didn’t care where it would go or how it would be received. It was purely artistic. It is my first baby, raw and honest.

— What is the idea of the song? What did you want to say?

— COVID was a difficult time for a lot of people, especially because of the sudden halt to routine and structure. But for me, it felt like a blessing. This might be the first time I am saying this so clearly, but I really experienced it that way.

Silent Fireworks was my attempt to show people my perspective on the world. Not necessarily to explain it, or to convince anyone, but to suggest that maybe you don’t need to search so far and wide in the external world. The real value is already inside you. The song comes from my comfort with solitude, my comfort with quiet, and my comfort with truth — being fully present without being tied to external circumstances, labels, or expectations. Just raw humanity and self-awareness.

With this song, I want people to see how beautiful life can be when you slow down.

— La7ali was the first song you wrote in Arabic, and before that, you felt uncomfortable expressing yourself in the language. Do you remember the moment when you began to feel comfortable writing and singing in Arabic? When did it start to feel like the right language for you?

— Over time, I heard a lot of people say, “You should write in Arabic.” But it wasn’t the language that intuitively came to me. I was speaking English throughout my day, and that is where my thoughts naturally flowed. For a long time, Arabic felt like my everyday, functional language, not a poetic one. I never imagined myself writing songs in it.

I think part of that came from the music we grew up with. There wasn’t much alternative or underground Arabic music. It was mostly love songs, pain, or patriotic themes, but nothing that really felt like it spoke for us.

At some point, I realised this could be my chance to express my own perspective in my mother tongue. It felt worth trying. I simply set an intention to rediscover my language.

I started small. Instead of journaling or writing poetry in English at night, I began writing a little in Arabic. I paid attention to my thoughts when they came in Arabic and wrote them down. La7ali didn’t suddenly appear fully formed. I had fragments — lines I kept returning to.

One night, I decided to give time to myself, to honour my solitude. That is when I wrote the core of La7ali. I didn’t know what it would become. I just thought, maybe one day I will do something with this.

I asked myself what was calling me to write in Arabic. The answer felt natural, like it was already there and just waiting. I felt I could expand on La7ali more than anything else. I wanted to normalise spending time alone — especially as an artist who cherishes space — and show that solitude doesn’t mean loneliness or isolation.

It was a moment of bravery. I sat at the piano and kept things simple. I think when you place too many expectations on yourself, you lose something essential. In the end, the language is already inside us. We have been growing up with it all along.

— And what about now? Which language feels more natural and comfortable for you when expressing your ideas and thoughts?

— Ever since La7ali, I have only written songs in Arabic. Once I did it, I felt how authentic it was.

For a long time, I felt shy about expressing myself in Arabic. At times, it even felt cringe, or blocked, or like I was estranged from my own language. I am still processing that, honestly. But somehow, I crossed that threshold by using music almost as an excuse — telling myself, why not? If I don’t do it, who will? If I don’t use our language, especially in a time when so much of our culture and identity feels taken from us, then what am I waiting for?

— Which song is the most important to you, and why?

— I think it would be Ya Enay Kafak Alam. Because with every song, I try to go one layer deeper — and this one goes very deep.

I recorded and filmed the song during the war in Lebanon. It was born out of complete chaos. At one point, we had to cancel the video shoot because Beirut was bombed. The explosions were so close that everything was vibrating, and for some of the crew, leaving their houses that day was life-threatening. We rescheduled for another day, constantly hoping we would make it there safely, hoping nothing unexpected would happen while we were shooting.

Because of that, this song became my most comprehensive one. It doesn’t just embody the Lebanese part of me — it carries something regional, something collective. It feels like it holds a shared experience, a collective voice. In that sense, it goes beyond me as an individual and becomes something wider, something we carry together.

— What is it about?

— I was introduced to this Sudanese song with a video of women in colourful veils, clapping and singing together through Tunisian producer Bilel Abdou. He used their voices only as a sample, and I remember falling in love with it and thinking, This is so beautiful — I want to sing it. It felt like another layer of the Arabic journey we have been talking about: singing in Arabic, but in a deeply native, rooted way.

I was drawn to the idea of singing it with a modern interpretation while still honouring its Sudanese dialect — finding my own voice without betraying the original spirit. The song came to me at a time when we were digitally witnessing the wars in Palestine and Sudan, and then the war reached Lebanon as well. We are still living through all of this.

Traditionally, many Sudanese songs are love songs. But listening to this song now, with the awareness I carry, love songs feel like a luxury. The real suffering isn’t romantic pain — it is collective suffering. It is the pain of women, of entire communities. When you are witnessing women in Sudan facing unimaginable violence, or what is happening in Palestine, who can think about love songs in the same way?

The song reached me with a different meaning: Oh My Eyes, Enough Pain. I felt the need to respond, to add my own poetry — words that bear witness to this pain. For me, this song became a cry to break free from a karmic cycle of violence that keeps repeating itself on these lands. A longing to escape, to transcend, to shed the chains placed on our regions — regions I belong to, regions that always seem to be on the edge of collapse.

By adding poetry, I gave the song a new meaning — one that feels more honest to our time. This is what needs to be said. I included translations in the video — lines about fleeting happiness, about longing, about return.

I collaborated with an incredible director, Rouba Noureddine, who immediately understood the vision. She saw the song as the story of an Arab woman breaking free. The video became symbolic: transforming from a traditionally veiled figure into something unbound. Removing the veil, removing the layers — it wasn’t about rejection, but about redefining. Redefining what it means to be Arab, what it means to exist on this land, and letting go of imposed identities and expectations.

The song speaks of love and destiny — but what is destiny? For me, it is about returning to the land, to the essence, and shedding symbolic ideas of what “being Arab” is supposed to look like, especially from an external gaze.

This feels like my most profound message yet. It is deeply personal and deeply collective at the same time. Even though it was born out of immense pain, there is still beauty in it — a shared humanity, a shared longing for freedom.

We shot the video under real danger. People risked their lives to make it happen. Releasing this song feels necessary — it needed to be said and to exist now.

— That is amazing work. Earlier in our conversation, you spoke about carrying a message through your music. Could you tell me more about that message?

— I see my work as an invitation to more consciousness and more compassion — both toward ourselves and toward others. For me, making music is a spiritual act. To do it, I have to truly be present with myself. I have to create a kind of sacred time for channelling, for expressing, for connecting with my most authentic self.

I often ask myself: what kind of energy do I want to receive through my music? The feeling I am drawn to is one of wonder — about the world, about being human, about the human condition. It is about slowing down, feeling more deeply, and not being afraid to explore the inner world. If I hadn’t done that inner work, music wouldn’t exist for me in the way it does now.

I honestly believe that if more of us allowed ourselves that space, the world would be a better place. What we need most right now is to slow down and regain a sense of humanity. We are living through climate change, ongoing violence, and a deeply flawed way of treating the earth and one another — driven by systems that prioritise profit over care.

My message is simple: more feeling in a senseless, hyper-capitalistic world. More awareness. More sensuality. More presence. Each song expresses this in a different way, from a different angle, but at its core, the message remains the same.