In May, halle o’malley, a producer who’s released on Vief a bunch of times by now, got in touch with an idea. She’d come across the Instagram of a 17-year-old Palestinian musician called Samih, who’s life has been torn apart by Israel’s recent onslaught on the Gaza strip. Their home destroyed, Samih and his family were forced to flee to a refugee camp in Rafah. A Middle East Monitor article from June stated that him and his family have been displaced 5 times since 7th October. During their displacement, Samih has gone viral posting videos of himself singing and playing a borrowed oud, an instrument that loosely resembles a guitar.
Having spoken to Samih and received his blessing, Halle planned to sample a video of his and donate the proceeds from the sales of that track to a GoFundMe set up for him and his family. Halle approached the label with the idea of scaling this project up by inviting other producers to sample Samih themselves or provide original tracks of their own.
Madhoun now stands as a compilation containing four productions sampling Samih, an interlude, and nine other dance tracks generously donated by producers from across the world.
