nabeel (نبيل) shares new single ‘yalma يلمع’

nabeel (نبيل) returns with new single ‘yalma يلمع’, an exploration of ephemerality and the unending pursuit of belonging when you are caught between two worlds. Steeped in the shoegaze and slowcore sounds of frontman Yasir Razak’s hometown in Richmond, Virginia – but conjured in his Arabic mother tongue – nabeel (نبيل)’s music is emotional, resonant and heavy with yearning for lives not lived. The track is the latest offering from his forthcoming EP ghayoom (غيوم) – clouds – to be released on July 24th.

After becoming a fixture of Virginia’s DIY scene moving through slowcore, pop and college-rock Cprojects, nabeel (نبيل) was born when Razak wanted to find a way to bridge the gap between his dual identity as first-generation immigrant. Choosing to sing only in Arabic, with the song title’s translation sitting side-by-side with its English characters, his lyrics are short, potent explorations of Arabic poetry delivered in a strikingly Western sound.

For the project’s music videos and visuals, he excavated his family archives and home movies, starting a cut-and-paste collage of places, people and times he couldn’t return to. It’s an obsession shared by many people of the Iraqi diaspora, forming an ever-expanding community around nabeel (نبيل) of people who are in search of alternative Arabic music which expresses their shared experience in ways language falls short of. 

Of the new single, ‘yalma يلمع’ – beginning with a softness which catches on jagged edges before plunging headlong into an almighty, totally transcendent crescendo – Razak shares: “yalma is about resting in a kind of stillness. wanting to hold onto that feeling. when everything seems to glimmer.” 

It’s another chapter in the unfolding story of nabeel (نبيل)’s new EP, ghayoom (غيوم). Beginning with forerunning single ‘khatil’, the project wrestles with questions of an uncertain future, an unreachable past and the changes in life we cannot resist. 

ghayoom (غيوم)

nabeel (نبيل)

July 24, 2025

1. khatil – خاتل

2. yalma – يلمع

3. dayr bali – داير بالي

4. resala – رسالة

5. ghayoom – غيوم

6. noor – نور

7. wasal – واصل