“When you think of beauty and luxury, why do you only think of Italy or France?” he wonders aloud. “We really wanted to portray the beauty of Algeria as a whole. It was a super-intense shoot, five 12-, 15-hour days, but the most fun ever.”
The “Diva” video tells the story of Marwan’s struggle to strike a balance between himself and his alter ego, risking the loss of a lover frustrated by Saint Levant’s fame. Yet the only real difference between his two sides, Abdelhamid clarifies, is Saint Levant’s veneer of confidence. “I never go and introduce myself as Saint Levant, but sometimes I feel like I do need a little persona to do things that Marwan would be too shy to do,” he says. “For me, that stuff is funny. Because I grew up in a super judgmental society, I still am a little bit shy, but then Saint Levant is going to go do choreography in front of 15,000 people.”
Photo: Hussein Mardini
Abdelhamid is at an itinerant point in his life. He has been living out of a suitcase for the past year and a half, performing at Coachella, sitting front row at Saint Laurent and Prada during Paris Fashion Week, and being named an “artist to watch” by the Grammys. Still, both his upward trajectory and his constant movement have had their downsides. “I love my friends, but they’re all so spread out across the world,” he says. “This year I’m trying to get into more group chats.”
It’s possible that by exploring the division between himself and Saint Levant, Abdelhamid is also examining the rapid changes in his career. “I’m trying to stay true to myself as I grow,” he says.
But regardless of what else he has going on, he can always count on one person to keep him grounded: his mother. “You think my mom’s going to call me Saint Levant, bro?” he says. “That’s crazy.”
Article originally published on vogue.com
