Dua Saleh

About

Also known as: دعاء صالح

Dua Saleh operates somewhere between rap, pop, and R&B, though their music tends to slip out of any one category before you can pin it down. The Sudanese American artist, based in Minneapolis, first caught attention with their 2019 debut EP Nūr, which landed strong reviews from Pitchfork and Robert Christgau. Two more EPs followed, Rosetta in 2020 and Crossover in 2021, and in October 2024 they released their first full studio album, I Should Call Them, a concept record about two lovers cycling through a relationship while the world falls apart around them. The album was cowritten with Emma DD and Josef Lamercier and produced by 1Mind. Beyond music, Saleh is a poet with serious roots, their spoken word piece "Pins and Needles" racked up over a hundred thousand views on Button Poetry's channel. They also act, with a recurring role as Cal Bowman in the Netflix series Sex Education bringing their work to a much wider global audience.