It’s common to call music “revolutionary,” a term to describe sounds that are unifying, unique, or bold in the artist’s statements. The production of Jersey-born, New York-based DJ Haram—producer, poet, and Discwoman affiliate born Zubeyda Muzeyyen—may inspire body movement, but isn’t afraid to agitate, mobilize, and explore deep, dark spaces on the way. Inspired not only by electronic music but by punk and noise, Haram’s intent is more than just making music for a fun night out. With her, flags can be waved, and slogans are shouted like birthday songs.
DJ Haram’s clashes Middle Eastern samples and melodies with genres like dance, hip-hop, and punk. And when Haram steps to the mic, her often airy vocals make her poetry cut like a serrated switchblade. She seduces like a cat’s meow and simmers with the quiet rage of a dominatrix, often in the same breath. As you will see, although Haram started as a DJ and producer, over time she has unfolded into a poet, world-builder, and sociopolitical voice of her scene.
While there are currently no details of her start, Haram’s earliest recordings can be found on compilations such as 2018’s Club Chai and 2016’s Dismiss U, a compilation curated by 8ULENTINA and Tobago Tracks. As far as a project goes, the collaborative Spa 700 is where poet/rapper/composer Moor Mother—or Camae Ayewa, to the closest of kin—and producer Haram meet for something as futuristic as it is funky, and is her first documented full project. Where the rigid knock of deconstructed club, in the hands of Ayewa, turns both lively and dismissive of those who come to crash the party. Between ambient violins on “Basic” and the futuristic clack-trap of “Cosmic Slop,” Haram provides nothing but ferocious sounds for Moor Mother to command. If Moor Mother is the lyrical soldier aiming at historical amnesiacs and cultural appropriators, Haram provides the drum to march, bounce, or rage to. Why choose?
Grace EP may not be Haram’s first project—that would be Mixed Berries, a three-track production tape, but it is the first that is organized like a complete project. A mini-album of sorts. Here, her beats are given more reign to explore a story within itself, almost to a proggy degree. For example, it opens with a three-track run that plays almost like one three-part suite: “No Idol” snaps in time to wonky synths and minced flute samples, and unfolds even via interlude into movies where danger remains afoot. The synth bass of “Interlude,” which then carries “Idols” into the bombastic gun-percussive banger “Gemini Rising,” can either be a sound of trepidation or of a righteous wrath brewing till it boils over. Previously released as a Bandcamp standalone, “Body Count” snugly makes its way at home with gun cocks and blast beats lining up with Middle Eastern percussion and light harp. Moor Mother even drops in with a rapid skittering 700 Bliss remix of Haram’s instrumental “Candle Light.” Grace EP is what happens when Haram sets out to create a cohesive, consistent EP.
After Grace EP, Haram released Era, another EP of beats, this time leaning more dreamy and classic-infused, but 700 Bliss’ Nothing to Declare introduces new tricks for Haram: poetry and rhyming.
Word is that Moor Mother encouraged Haram to contribute more vocals to the track. And little did Moor Mother know she would unleash a cobra for years to come, as Haram demonstrates a knack for delivering killshot lines with a soft yet firm tone. Nothing To Declare doesn’t aim to make one whole statement; rather, many topics are on the table. Whether they both call out fake queer folks on the trunk-rattling title track, dismiss the boys’ club demeanor in hip-hop on “No More Kings,” or demand folks “make room” for more ladies in different professional settings on the Orion Sun-assisted “Nightflame,” Haram’s holds her own with music that either bust your speakers with a raw bounce—such as “Anthology” and the static trap “Sixteen”—or threatens to disintegrate like fuzz mold—like the dizzying spoken word track “Seven.” Nothing To Declare appeared in 2022, a time when experimental rap was slowly rising, and female rap was growing with every new budding artist. Ultimately, this is 700 Bliss’ hat thrown into the ring for both sides. And so you know, they aren’t above laughing at any detractor, as demonstrated on “Easyjet.”
Fresh off the collaborative Nothing To Declare, Handplay is the first project where Haram’s vocals come into play. The nightmarish title track promises to fuck up your subwoofer and melt the ears of those swayed by the coquettish lyricism. “Gushy, bleeding, comfy, weeded / princess treatment, I’m indecent,” she moans as her sultry vocals become one with a bouncy, lustful house beat underneath, while everything melts like wax candles. Meanwhile, “No Funeral” is more confrontational with distorted guitars’ snarls, swirling synths in a pit of dissociation, and lyrics that turn from seemingly appreciative to dismissive, concerning a lady and his “old and so juvenile” partner. From the sleepy pound of a house beat to a razor-sharp knife of a punk track, Haram shows that a lyrical hiss is just as good as a lion’s roar.
Given that Haram has been active for as long as she has, to hear that 2025’s Beside Myself is her first full-length album may seem surprising. Shocking, even. But with Beside Myself, Haram has not wasted the moment to do with this album what many people begged music to do in 2015: reflect the times.
In this case, times were dark, maddening, shadowy, uncertain. Countrywide ICE raids, Republican takeover of the White House, and rolling back bills protecting the vulnerable and marginalized. “Walking Memory” alone is the dissonant sound of what it means to swirl into the hellscape of now. Everything traumatic, everything overstimulating, everything threatens to overtake you before finally *BLEEP.* Back to reality. Or is it?
Beside Myself is a look deep inside of Haram’s mind; an attempt to keep it and the world around her from fracturing. Under the fiery distortion of synths and guitar feedback of “Lifelike,” where she reunites with Moor Mother, Haram angrily recites, “I see God, and I can’t stand him / I see evil, and I can’t handle.” The dizzy thump of “Voyeur” follows, if not to further highlight the madness taking hold. She isn’t alone as indie rap preachers of the nothing world, Armand Hammer joins her on “Stenography,” and Bbymutha and Sha Ray both throw lyrical left hooks on the August Fanon-assisted “Fishnets.”
But this album settles in her most simmering track: “Distress Tolerance.” She uses quiet rage to rip users, fake allies, rich narcissists, weak men, and many more after insisting she “could have been this world’s thickest eco-terrorist.” Red-eyed yet restrained, clear yet slightly obscured by blaring woodwinds, it is a meditation that leaves the question: is “Deep Breath (An Ending)” the sound of healing, the celebration of the self, or is it the ushering of a fiercer Haram? After all, in “Distress Tolerance,” she did pray to be made “more vicious” amongst her detractors.
For those who heard the first single, “Champagne and Bouquets,” Haram saying, “my titties jiggle life when I walk,” is a middle finger of a statement. Concerning the pedigree of both artists, this should not be surprising. Though San Francisco’s Sha Ray’s releases may appear to be scarce at the moment, the tracks she has available speak about sex from a place of power and observation. Gooning misogynists get crunched for a snack, then spit out. In her production, Haram often manipulates a femininity element along with her own cultural injection as a weapon. Now that you see them both on the album cover, breasts perked to the nines, raven black bustiers, fishnet stockings, and clean, black knee-high boots, there is nothing to expect other than two ladies with sharp teeth bared underneath their red lipstick. And they are not here to please. They are here to confront, to destroy, to discomfort, to disturb. They are here to burn down the misogynist boys club, one piece of wood at a time.
Here, Haram’s production spans genres from deconstructed club to Memphis rap to bouncy, Baltimore-style production, while Sha Ray isn’t afraid to be the mistress of ceremonies. She boasts, “The tricking come easy, my girl is so cold, bring your nigga around us, he just might fold,” over a slow glitchy beat, which accompanies the two-part “Shole Ain’t.” Yet, her most quotable barb towards those with Manosphere mentalities is on the dark and deadly ”Low End Skeeza.” On said track, Sha Ray taunts judgmental men by daring them to “run and tell, see me as Jezebel, send me straight to hell” and further drives the sword into said egos by declaring “niggas only get pussy with coercion.”
While Haram might offer vocals here and there on the project, her biggest contribution is on one of the darkest tracks on the album: “Elixir.” On such a track, the pretty becomes the vengeful, the victim, the villain, the dark angel. Haram sets up the track with a mix of sadness and panther-like fire ready to burn all around her, while Sha Ray busts in with a devastating beginning line: “Mace in our purses, can’t even tell if they know I’m a person”. What started as an album of boasts and barbs isn’t afraid to spiral towards the darkest pit of what it is like being the “it girl,” the “sex goddess.” Ass fat, but make sure the ribs show, as grimly described on the woozy, grimy closer “Boudoir.” If Critical Thot has one unifying statement, it is that sex is not a sin. Dehumanization is.
