Dua Saleh

Saleh, who came to the United States from Sudan as a child, wrote poetry from an early age. While attending Augsburg University, they began to experiment with music, eventually releasing a demo in 2017. Shortly after, they began to work with local producer Psymun and began performing their music live, culminating in their 2019 EP release. Their music has been characterized as rap, pop, and R&B, although they have also been described as defying genres. In addition to writing and recording music, Saleh has also acted in theater in Minneapolis. Saleh's first language was Arabic, which they said in 2017 was a "struggle to maintain" because of their immersion in English. Saleh is Muslim, but they do not consider themself "religious in the institutional sense". They have discussed their relationship with traditions of Islamic attire, stating that traditional "attire isn't reflective of their personal relationship with the deen, but reflective of the image of a Muslim that they've been indoctrinated to believe is socially accepted". In high school, they were elected vice president of Central's gay-straight alliance; when their mother discovered pamphlets for the organization in their backpack, she sent Saleh to Dugsi Academy, an Islamic charter school in Saint Paul.