In a city where noise and chaos often drown out reflection, Beirut-based singer-songwriter Yal Solan has chosen silence, or something close to it, as her act of resistance. Her new single, “Manam” (out September 10), is born out of stillness: the emotional “freeze response” that takes hold when the body shuts down in the face of overwhelming fear.
But Solan is quick to reframe what might be dismissed as paralysis. “Freeze isn’t numbness”, she says. “It’s a pause, a shield. In that stillness, we can dream.” Manam is that dream set to music: hypnotic guitars, trance-like beats, and sultry vocals that echo soul and R&B traditions while remaining deeply Lebanese in spirit.
A Different Kind of Reaction
The track forms part of Raddit Fe3el, a collaborative album gathering poets, rappers, and musicians to respond to Lebanon’s political collapse and social unraveling. While many contributions are fiery and overtly political, Solan chose the opposite path: “I realized I had no reaction left , not in the way people expected. That’s when I decided to write about non-reaction itself”.
It’s a bold move, especially for a woman’s voice in a space often dominated by masculine energy and slogans. Where others bring shouts, she brings a whisper , and the contrast is striking.
More Than a Music Video
For the visuals, director Robert Minassian crafted a dual world: one of oceans, birds, and flowing gowns; another of fire, destruction, and harsh shadows. Solan plays both roles, embodying serenity and turmoil at once. “I had to act peace and destruction simultaneously”, she recalls. “Dreamy and flowy dresses on one side, stark contrasts on the other. It’s about holding contradictions together”.
This blending of music, fashion, and film feels natural for Solan, who also works as a model and actor and has roots in design and animation. For her, aesthetics are not decoration but amplification: ways of translating the inward into the outward.
Protest Without a Slogan
If Manam feels like a lullaby, it is a lullaby with teeth. Solan describes it as “a quiet protest against turmoil”. She refuses the demand to constantly resist with fire, choosing instead to resist through care, through dreaming. “Silence can speak very loudly”, she says. “Sometimes surrender isn’t defeat , it’s survival”.
That message will resonate with Lebanese audiences exhausted by endless cycles of corruption, violence, and empty rhetoric. Manam insists that survival itself, even through withdrawal, is political.
A Continuum of Honesty
The single follows La7ali, another deeply personal track, but Solan sees a key difference. “La7ali was about solitude” she explains. “Manam belongs to a shared context. It carries my mysticism but stays in touch with the real world”.
And this is just the beginning. Solan hints at future releases that will take her further into collective and political territory. “I’m not out to write slogans” she says, “but being a Lebanese woman here means you can’t separate the personal from the political. My next work will echo that, louder, broader, more regional.”
For now, Manam offers something rare: not a battle cry, but a moment to breathe. In stillness, Yal Solan finds resistance. And in her voice, Lebanon’s fatigue transforms into something strangely hopeful, the power to dream, even when frozen.
