I was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt. I spent 2 years in Cairo studying Computer Science at the School of Engineering, Al Azhar University before my family and I migrated to New York City. I graduated with a B.A. in Psychology after 11 years of being an undergraduate student, on and off, while taking breaks and gap years to learn English and to learn about the system here. I've tried a few majors from Math to Journalism while holding various jobs from a sous-chef to a lyft/uber driver and eventually a college assistant until I graduated. I started working on Wall Street a bit after my graduation and soon after I started I applied to graduate school. I quit my job after a year and moved to Isla Vista to start my master's in Global Studies. Shortly after, I was hospitalized and diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Psychosis, and have been in recovery since. I am researching a new genre of music in Egypt called mahraganat, and I am trying to look at the politics of respectability and the class conflict that surrounds the recent events that followed the ban - enforced by the state and its agents -  of artists from performing live and I am developing a different imagination to perceive the music.