DUBAI: Saudi rapper, singer and songwriter Asayel Bishi (who uses just her first name as an artist) has released her debut single, “Asliyah” on MDLBeast Records. In it, according to a press release, she “addresses naysayers and doubters with a playful smirk, her words laced with Hejazi slang (Bishi was born and raised in Makkah but now lives in Jeddah) and a wisdom beyond her years.” 

The song is billed as “a statement of intent” and will serve, for most, as an introduction to Bishi’s music. Her flow, on this track at least, is deliberate, closer to a spoken-word performance than a rap. And that was a conscious decision, she says.  

“I’m actually telling a story. I’m not really rapping and I’m not singing,” she says. “It’s like I’m talking to someone. This is stuff that really happened to me and stuff that I really want people to know. I’m basically telling how people have mocked my style. And the reasons why they don’t like my style. And at the end, I’m saying, like, ‘OK. I’m here. And I’m entering the scene.’” 

The colorful accompanying video was shot on the streets of Jeddah.  

“All the locations in the video are very famous (here). The director (Ahmed Lebleb) wanted to reflect the image that, here in Jeddah, you can do these (creative) things. It’s not just about the beach and swimming,” Bishi explains.  

“Asliyah,” Bishi tells Arab News, was the first song she wrote in Arabic.  

“When I started out, I was writing in English, but when I started working with MDLBeast, they told me, ‘OK, now you need to focus on the Arabic side because you need to communicate with your community,’” she says. “They also told me about other artists — local artists — I should be listening to, like Moayad and Dafencii.”  

It’s been an inspiring change, Bishi explains. “I have purpose now,” she says. “I want to do it to improve myself, but also to encourage other girls to go out and to sing, to perform, to write, to rap… to build this female music community.”