DJ Haram is channelling her fury at the state of everything into a hypnotic debut album

After a decade spent confounding expectations, New York-based producer and Moor Mother collaborator DJ Haram shifts course once again on her debut album Beside Myself, channelling Middle Eastern influences alongside noise-rap, club music, hip-hop, and experimental sound design.

In an industry obsessed with personal branding and neat, easily consumable categorisation, DJ Haram stands out. Ever since she started DJing in 2012, the Brooklyn-based artist – real name Zubeyda Muzeyyen – has embraced the messier side of things, favouring an “open-format” approach to music rather than sticking to any one style. A classic DJ Haram set may jackknife from a heady, percussive club rhythm into a swarm of noise, while her productions pitch up somewhere between East Coast club material and Middle Eastern instrumentation. Her side duo with Moor Mother, 700 Bliss, is similarly eclectic: a hypnotic, punky blend of hip-hop, spoken word and ambient, complete with choppy samples. Now, more than a decade in, Muzeyyen goes even further, describing herself as “anti-format” – rejecting the idea of categories altogether. “Being an ‘open-format’ DJ implies that you exist in a system where the format is glorified,” she says, before smiling knowingly. “I’m like, no – we’re doing other art over here. We’re doing multidisciplinary propaganda.”

When we speak over a video call in late May, Muzeyyen is on the cusp of releasing her debut solo album Beside Myself – a 40-odd-minute, genre-circumventing response to what she refers to as “the present global hellscape”. Dialling in from her Brooklyn bedroom, surrounded by posters and wrapped up in both a hoodie and a blanket, she could easily be mistaken for an angsty teenager at her computer. She speaks in the language of a TikTok fiend – all “yassify”s and “starter packs” – occasionally applying lip balm with acrylics that poke through fingerless gloves. But quickly, you know she means business: when not pulling on sardonic internet slang, she speaks frankly, about everything from global politics to the music industry itself. She insists that the album’s extensive list of collaborators – almost as many as there are tracks – is, in fact, probably smaller than those of most records; she’s just paying people’s dues. “I’m actually just crediting everybody,” she says, matter-of-factly. “[I’m] trying to show respect to the people who contributed significantly.”

Since putting out her first single in 2016, Muzeyyen has released a sequence of EPs and tapes, like her 2019 breakthrough Grace, which is as moody as it is sexy, or this year’s Hypervigilant/Never Nostalgic – a whirlwind cassette of previously unreleased instrumental productions. When I ask why now feels like a good time to finally put out an LP, she laughs: “That’s a funny question, because it doesn’t feel like it’s a good time at all. Business, politics, struggle, culture…,” she says, shrugging, before spiralling into a polemic on the current state of affairs – from Trump to Palestine and the ongoing KKR and Superstrukt boycotts. “Things are getting a little bit towards the level of diabolical. It feels like not a good time, because it’s such an extreme time, honestly.”

But maybe that’s exactly why it is a good time for her, she muses. Muzeyyen believes in music’s capacity to heal, but also to galvanise. “There’s music to make you passively accept liberal and neoliberal ideology and, like, capitalism and consumer culture. Then there’s music that’s supposed to make you think.” Beside Myself is the latter, reckoning with everything from women’s rights to class consciousness and resistance. She elaborates: “I’m using music to be a medium where I [can] brainstorm – like, OK, what do we do here?” 

Muzeyyen is tired of soft gestures and wants to challenge the widespread ambivalence across the music world. “The first time Trump got elected, everybody was like, ‘This is gonna be like the Bush era, and we’re going to have [this] cool, hard, political left, this music and anthems again, and people are going to get weird.’ People [were] really hyped about that era of musical culture – that was a silver-lining prediction for a lot of people.” She speaks fast and enthusiastically, before sighing. “But instead, we got Brat, and we got doing G at the club and falling asleep and just zoning the fuck out instead of tuning in. We got a lot of politics that were very individualistic.”

Community and music have always been intertwined for Muzeyyen. Growing up in New Jersey, in what she describes as an insular community of Turks, Arabs and Muslims, she was exposed to an array of Middle Eastern music early on, via family functions, as well as her dad’s cassette collection. Her uncle played the darbuka drums and the accordion. As a teenager, she went to DIY punk, noise and rap shows, before eventually shifting her focus to dance music when she moved to Philadelphia in 2012. It was here that she was introduced to the now-defunct DJ collective Discwoman, who later invited her to join their roster. 

Though these disparate musical tendrils were not always interconnected – this was before the wave of ‘diaspora nights’ now found across the world – they have all left clear imprints on Muzeyyen’s music. Amid the steely noise-rap and club sensibilities, Middle Eastern motifs are scattered throughout Beside Myself, like in lead single Voyeur, with its whining strings and syncopated percussion, or on standout track Loneliness Epidemic, which spirals into a rattling frenzy of drums, shakers and chanting vocals – samples of shepherds yelling to their flocks. It’s a core part of her sound – because it sounds good, but also because it feels familiar. “[There’s a] certain natural inclination I have that I would relate to language,” she tells me, gazing off screen. “I feel very drawn to it.” She sees it as her responsibility to preserve this cornerstone of her culture and community. “Indigenous music is utilitarian in that way – when you lose or leave the land, you have to concretise what is still being held.”

Intuition is a guiding principle for Muzeyyen. In terms of musical training, she is proudly self-taught, but it has taken a while for her to reach a point where she can knuckle down and focus on artistry and technical ability, rather than just “being a gig worker in the nightlife industry”. The album was written over the last three years, between late-night sessions in shared studios on the other side of town and the long train rides over. But the roots stretch back further, with ideas and field recordings dating as far back as 2018. The latter, which Muzeyyen fashions into “skits”, feature throughout the record. They’re not just interludes, though. They’re just as important as the tracks themselves, Muzeyyen says – a means to foster connection with her audience amid the heaviness. “They’re a way for the listener to [feel] acknowledged. To be like: hey, here’s a little shout-out for you, here’s a little breather – next song coming up soon!” she says, half-jokingly. “Maybe I should have just included: hey, good job – you’re making it through!”

In this way, Beside Myself is more of a mixtape, or collage, than a straight-up club record – one intended to be listened to in a single sitting, like the CDs and tapes she used to find around the house. “I’m not really for the dancefloor any more,” she says with quiet confidence. “My album fits into its own lane.” Indeed, she sees Beside Myself as three interlocking parts: hip-hop and rap, club music and experimental sound design. “It was my chance to present things that are this different all in one, and ask people to kind of have that experience with me,” she says earnestly.

Among all the collaborators, Muzeyyen’s own voice can be heard – over the intercom at the end of the opening track, or more prominently on songs like Remaining and Lifelike (featuring Moor Mother), where she murmurs about men, God and not giving a fuck in a smoky, almost erotic drawl. She prefers the term ‘poet’ to ‘rapper’, though. “Don’t tell any of the rappers that I’m a rapper, because that would just hurt everybody’s feelings,” she says, cheekily. “But now we’re just getting into semantics.”

Muzeyyen’s lyrics are an extension of her lifelong interest in writing, something she was never encouraged to pursue because of “annoying family conservative things”. Now, though, it feels right to channel this impulse through her music – for the world, but also for herself – which feels like the essence of the project. “There’s a lot that I want to put into words, so yeah, it feels good to share that,” she says, almost shyly. In other words, she might be beside herself, but she’s certainly getting things off her chest.