Amira Jazeera is a pop star whose light is only beginning to reach our planet. Raised in Columbus and based in Chicago, the 25-year-old singer-songwriter released her sugary sweet debut full-length, The Amira Diaries, in April of this year, and it can rival anything by Sabrina Carpenter or Chappell Roan. But while those artists have had the benefit of major label budgets and professional studios, Jazeera recorded and produced her album in her bedroom.
Jazeera calls herself a “Palestinian pop princess,” and she embraces her heritage in her music as well as in how she presents it. She released The Amira Diaries in conjunction with Levantine Music, an independent label focused on Arabic talent, and she’s played shows and contributed to charity albums benefiting relief efforts for Gazans enduring Israel’s campaign of genocide. She’s also amassed thousands of TikTok followers with a series of videos where she adds Arabic percussion to pop songs.
Jazeera’s sound harks back to the Total Request Live era of the late 90s and early 2000s, when artists such as Britney Spears and Aaliyah scored hits with sleek futuristic pop that sometimes sampled Arabic music that didn’t use the familiar major scale. She follows suit with the queer love song “Hypnotizing,” which pairs darbuka rhythms with squealing synths and soaring strings to convey the excitement of a dance-floor connection. Elsewhere Jazeera draws on other influences: On the chorus of “Still Thinkin’ Bout Me,” she practically purrs her disdain for an ex who can’t forget her, and then a house beat drops and chops up her taunts into glittering disco-ball shards. Her glossy aesthetics extend from her music to her videos, including the sapphic Victorian elegance of “Thinkin’” and the vintage VHS home fitness chic of “Luv U Down.”
Lili Trifilio of local indie-pop darlings Beach Bunny, who’ve grown into hometown festival headliners, recently shouted out Jazeera on Instagram as one of several “talented iconic smaller artists in the pop/alt world” that her followers needed to know about. That praise should add to Jazeera’s momentum before this Burlington show, where she’ll surely make the grungy Logan Square venue feel like a Palestinian pop oasis