Qur’an Shaheed

Qur’an Shaheed’s music is a post-modern rupture of R&B and techno, soul jazz and modern composition, choral purity and processed mayhem. During the 11 tracks of Pulse, her 2025 debut for Leaving Records, she shifts between these sounds and ideas with childlike wonder but a collage artist’s intention, finding unexpected seams between modes that may have once seemed disconnected. If “Doo Doo Doo” dances for a minute like a glittering piece of electrosoul, its roboticized vocals and explosive finale ultimately suggest Björk finding fresh inspirations. “Mixing Colors” takes shape as a wondrous playground of vocal drone but dissolves into the sort of ambient haze Tim Hecker might make. And the two-part “Fix It” zigs between spiritual jazz and boom bap, between Flying Lotus-style rhythmic tumult and sunken-world noise.

Shaheed was raised in Pasadena, where she began playing piano at age four. Her mother and her grandmother were her primary teachers, while her father toured with Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. After years of intense training as a pianist, she began to write songs only a dozen years ago, gradually developing her voice. “Over time, I realized my voice was just as much an instrument as the piano,” she once said. “Now, my music blends everything I’ve absorbed—jazz, neo-classical, neo-soul, improvisation—into something personal and constantly evolving.” Shaheed’s 2020 EP, Process, offered a promise of cutting-edge experimental soul that Pulse begins to deliver. These are songs about dreams and ambitions, hope and loss, built from bits of text she saved over the years and from loops made with producer Spencer Hartling. It is a riveting introduction to an arresting young artist.