Me and Raneem at her senior show in February 2020 :')
chief editor Michaela Thordarson design William McLain story William McLain photography Anthony Lorenzo photo editing Anthony Lorenzo featuring Raneem Imam
Okay. Last question. What are some artists, songs, or albums that you’ve had on repeat lately? Put me on.
Let me look. I’ve been all over the place. I’ve been listening to a lot of small artists, and a lot of Memphis music. I’ve been supporting everybody. Nubia’s new album is amazing. Cyrena Wages has an album on the way.
One of the artists that I really love right now, Naïka, she’s island pop. She kind of gives me Rihanna. She’s just so suave and sensual and pop, I love her music. I saw her live, and she’s amazing. I really hope that she gets bigger because I really love her sound and her style.
I’ve also been listening to a lot of Arabic artists that are coming up. There’s Thoom. She’s doing this pop, alt, but also Arabic influenced kind of world. It’s not hyper pop, what is it? I don’t know.
I think I saw Kim Petras talking about her.
It is kind of a Kim Petras vibe. Because I don’t have one genre that I do, it’s very apparent in my listening. I’m listening to PRIMA [by ADÉLA] and then I’m listening to Dolly and then I’m listening to Bayou, and I love being reintroduced to artists too. Steve Lacy just came out with an album. Mac Miller just posthumously released. I love the merging of all of those.
TUL8TE is fucking banger, man. There’s a whole wave of Arab pop that I’m loving. Him and Saint Levant. Everyone’s shitting on him because he’s trying to be the Bad Bunny of the Arab world, I guess, but he’s got it like that. And his writers are so good, his songs are bops. Everyone can sit their ass down because you’re just mad you didn’t think of it first. REHMA is also amazing. She’s Pakistani Desi, and she does a kind of futuristic Desi pop. And then, God, I could go down the list. Lana Lubany. I love all these up and coming Arab artists that are all figuring it out together. But yeah, it’s all over the place. I feel like I’ll listen to one thing one day and then, yeah.
And even she stopped doing visuals. But she did set that standard.
Yeah, she doesn’t fucking do visuals anymore, ugh. But I’ve been told so many times: don’t waste your money on visuals. And you know what? Okay, don’t waste your money on visuals, but use what you got. Because visuals are so cool to integrate into your music. People don’t spend on music videos anymore because MTV is not the same, you know? But I’m so inspired and excited by what these artists, who don’t have much, do with so little. And it’s even more inspiring than big budget slop that people are doing these days. It’s cooler to be like, “I can’t do all that, but how can I still create the illusion,” and be really creative. Really creative, that’s the key.
And you pulled off “If Summer Was a Man” with a low budget. It looks incredible. I mean, that’s a short film.
Thank you.
I know it also requires relying on collaboration and your community.
Yeah. And I feel so blessed to have that all around me.
You have a lot of people that love you and want to support you.
I love you.
I love you too. This has been so fun, Raneem. Thank you so much!
What a fun time. No, thank you! I forget I do all these things.
You’re awesome. You’ve inspired me since August 2016 and here we are.
Here we are. Holy shit.
And you got a lot coming.
I know, I’m excited. Alhamdillah.
I need a little bit of play. I need a little bit of imagination station.
Congrats on your single and music video release for “If Summer Was a Man.” Both are beautiful.
Thank you.
And I had so much fun assisting.
Thank you!
It was inspiring seeing you and Parnian work together. Your dynamic, first of all, is pretty funny.
I know right, isn’t it hilarious?
But also y’all push each other and collaborate in such a cool way. It’s an honor to witness and be on set. How did y’all start collaborating?
She’s my friend first. We met through a mutual friend, and we just really hit it off. She has such good taste in so many things. She comes from a fashion background, but she’s also an artist in her own right: a visual artist, a writer, and a very expressive human in general. I’ll always talk about my ideas with her; we have that underlying thing between us outside of just being friends and talking about tea and whatever.
We connected on that artistic level and fashion level, and she also really challenges me too, and I feel like I challenge her. So it’s a cool dynamic.
But the first wild idea we had was with “All the Time.” I remember I was telling her about this idea, and she was like, why not? Why would it be so crazy to make a music video that looked like you were in an hourglass, and you got a bunch of sand, and you were rolling around in it? And I was like, she’s feeding my delusions, and that’s a good sign because I need a little bit of play. I need a little bit of imagination station. We lost that as kids.
Chappell Roan always talks about healing your inner child through art. It’s weird that once you tap into that childlike feeling, it feels very immature. It feels like, what the fuck am I doing, and why am I not at a 9-5 right now? And why am I spending my Sunday filled with dust and sand and tarps and shit? It almost felt like a playdate. As we were preparing for that, it was like, “Come over, so we can play and figure this out.” And the same thing happened with “If Summer Was a Man.” I always had a music video idea in mind, but I had old visualizers that I was going to use instead. Then I said the idea to Parnian, and she was like, “Let me come over, let’s storyboard this.” We sat down on a random Tuesday and were like, yeah, here’s a music video, and let’s shoot it this weekend.
And we did.
I’m calling up everyone I know. We celebrated her birthday, and then we did the music video the next day. It felt like a Saturday playdate with friends. And I think we bonded over that. We both needed that sense of play and that childlike feeling again because this world is so serious, and there’s so much shit happening. Not to say that isn’t as important, but God, is it important to remember your playful child self again.
So yeah, that’s how we came about. And now we just keep working on things together, and it’s natural. It was always me being like, “Hey, Parnian what do you think, do you want to do this?” And now she’s initiating, and I’m like, okay that’s a good sign that I haven’t run her off.
No, she’s texting the group chat right now like, “Y’all got suits?”
Yeah I know! And I was like, “Suits? Oh my God.”
I’m ready. She’s such a good director. And I’m really excited to see what y’all do next, seriously.
Me too.
So you’re on tour right now. That’s exciting. How’s that going? Where have you been so far and what’s coming up?
It’s so crazy. Yeah, I planned a tour from the Middle East and back to America. Went to Jordan, went to Lebanon, went to New York, about to go to Miami, then back to Memphis for Cooper-Young Fest, and then I’ve booked one more show in Nashville in October. So it’s like a summer into fall tour that kind of came out of nowhere.
I always like doing shows when I go back home to visit Jordan, so I booked a show there. And then I’d also coincidentally booked a show in New York around the same time, and it felt kismet to just keep booking other dates in other cities, and I was just asking around, like where can I do a show? Then I received a grant from Music Export Memphis that helped take the show on the road. It’s always been a bit of an insecurity of mine to do a tour because I didn’t feel like I deserved to go on tour since nobody really knows me. A lot of industry people will let their artists sit for years and years without going on a tour or without even performing because they’re not big enough yet, and they need to keep working online and getting their audience numbers up. But I feel like everything I do is out of order anyway. So I was like, okay, let me just lose a bunch of money and go on tour and rip the band-aid off. I feel like Dolly said it best, everything is an experience and nothing is a regret. And that’s how I’ve always lived. Even when I’m scared — which I really am, sometimes, a little terrified — I just go with that and remember that it’s okay to do things and look back and say, “What did we learn? How do we grow? What do we do next?”
How has touring affected how you view your audience?
Oh, man. Well, the New York show really surprised me because people that I didn’t expect to come came and some new faces as well, and it was a packed house. That was really cool. A lot of people were seeing me for the first time, even some friends who’d never seen me live before because they don’t live in Memphis. Bringing that Memphis soul to different cities and showing them that our city has so much talent is so important to me.
But how I view my audience is like, maybe I can pull people together that don’t know me. Because in Memphis, usually people who are at my shows are people who know me. But then I realized that everyone’s like one degree off. The people who know me that come to those shows bring their friends and their friends bring friends. So yeah, that’s how I’ve viewed it, and I’m excited to one day have a bigger budget and bigger audience and show that even more, Inshallah.
What do you feel like the next step is for you creatively? Are you working towards a larger body of work?
Yeah, there was a period of this past year and a half where I’ve been working on some unnamed, unknown project, just wanting to see a thread weave itself through these songs that I was creating. Now, I feel like I have a really good rhythm, and I’m excited about the stuff that I’m working on. I’m trying to figure out a sonic story that I can tell. And I’m not sure yet, but I have an idea of what I’d like to present. I’m still in the process of finishing songs and getting them over the finish line. I’m taking it slow, single by single and just seeing what people are liking and also listening to myself. But that’s kind of where I’m at right now. I’m excited to share more when the time comes.
And I’m sat when that time comes. It’s been really cool to see your progress. And I feel like you’re just getting started.
Thank you. I’m excited.
What parts of your personality do you think come through strongly in your music?
Ooh. When I first started, it was a lot to do with my lyricism, and I kind of forgot about showing off my singing skills. So I wanted to start doing that more. But also my cheekiness, like in “Little Miss” with “get your money right, ask questions later,” which evolved into “Hit ’n Run” with “where the fuck did you come from,” like you’re a blatant hit and run. I love that. Even though it’s weird to talk about yourself like that, I love seeing my transition of being cheekier and wittier, without it feeling too overbearing or out of left field. I love a laugh. And I also love empowerment, laughing and empowerment: if you can laugh about something, you can get through it, you know?
One of the songs that I wrote recently, I was in such a sad place, but through the sadness, I got to laugh and be super confident, like the super version of myself in the studio. It unlocked that song for me. I wasn’t able to finish the song until I’d felt that feeling and been like, “No, I’m that bitch and fuck you, and I’m gonna to show you in this song.”
That’s a really fun thing to unlock about my personality because I feel like you have to dim yourself sometimes, and I don’t think you should. Sometimes in certain settings, you dim and you brighten. But on stage and in these songs, I can be this bigger version of myself and show off all the different qualities that I have.
Speaking of “Hit ’n Run,” the bridge on that song is my favorite vocal moment on the live album. You ate. I love that song, and I love the story you tell when you perform it. Would you mind sharing it again?
That’s a fun crazy story. This is the part where I’m like, how much can I let loose and say? I’m not trying to be Taylor Swift, so it’s fine, right?
I was dating somebody at the time that told me about a hit and run they had, and I thought it was so crazy. It wasn’t too bad, they hit his car from behind and left him with a little dent in his bumper. Anyway, it didn’t work out with that person, but that story kind of inspired me to write a song from that perspective, because that hit and run feeling is a very common experience in people’s love lives. People don’t want to stick around to see the damage they cause, they just skrrt skrrt. It obviously hurts when you get left behind, but I wasn’t really that emotional about that particular experience. It was just a cool storytelling opportunity, like a muse.
Anyway, I performed that song in the new year, and then I actually get into a hit and run that spring. I was like, “Oh shit, did I manifest this for myself?” And mine was an even crazier situation. The guy slammed into the back of my car while I was stopped at a light, started to back away, but his car broke down. And I thought he can’t possibly get away now, right? Wrong. He gets out of his car, grabs all his shit, and runs away into the dark, never to be seen again. I was like, “Did that just fucking happen?” And he really fucked up, not just my car, but another car. And his car that I guess was stolen.
That seemed like a more interesting story to tell than the way the song actually came about. It’s a really good example of what a lot of people do when they don’t want to get stuck with the carnage they cause. They’re scared to take accountability for what they did. And I had to be the one to sit there and take it, and I had to deal with the insurance and the cops, and I had to figure out how to get my own compensation. You’re the one stuck dealing with all the residual effects, and that person won’t ever have to deal with it, other than it being on their conscience. So I thought that was a really interesting way to express that feeling, and I guess a lot of people resonated with that story.
It’s fun to get the deep cut.
The deep cut. Yeah, you get the unabridged version.
I wanted to highlight my band, thank them, and then move on from Better in Color and be just Raneem.
Tell me about your live album, raneem & better in color. We talked a little bit about your band Better in Color, but that album is one of my favorite releases of 2025 [recorded in 2024].
Yay I’m so glad! Better in Color started at Rhodes with my senior show. The idea was to do an all-woman band because I felt like it was a boys club, where all the guys always got asked to play, and there weren’t enough girl instrumentalists playing in bands. That was the original idea. I tried to keep it up, but it was so hard. Everyone was busy. But my drummer, Erika, stayed around thankfully. The bass player, guitar player, and piano player have always been a rotating thing. It really didn’t feel like there was a set band because there were so many different iterations, but that core, with Ferg and Nico and Max and Erika, was probably at the height of us all doing shows together, and our dynamic was just so locked in and so tight.
Max had the idea of doing a recording session at Archer Recording. It took me a second to think about how we would use that recording time. I remember thinking it’d be really cool to pay homage to the years I’ve spent doing performances. Because at that point, I hadn’t released anything in such a long time, and I wasn’t comfortable releasing anymore. I wasn’t as chronically online as I used to be, and I'd lost a lot of excitement for it. This was also post October 7th with the genocide, and my head was not in it anymore. I think that really affected me. When that all happened, it took a second to get back in it, and even when I did it’s never been the same. I still did live shows, but I lost a bit of that fire. I regained it back in 2024 and started trickling in little things — like the song “Little Things” — just trickling in that feeling and figuring out new arrangements. That was really when I started dipping my toes in the Arabic style.
And that day, having people come in and be a part of this secret show experience — it went so well. It was cool to combine my love for performing as well as recording. When you’re recording for a record, it’s a lot more in your head, and you’re thinking about a lot of different things. But when you’re performing, there’s a certain beauty to the fact that once you’ve sung it, it’s out in the air, and it’s gone. There is a really electric relationship between the audience and the artist in that kind of setting where sometimes you walk away from a show and you’re like, “Damn, what did I just experience?”
That’s how that came about. I wanted to highlight my band, thank them, and then move on from Better in Color and be just Raneem. I still obviously say we’re Better in Color and all that, but I feel like I wanted to let that chapter end, so a new one could begin. That was a season of my life, of being a performer and doing cover band stuff and not getting paid that well. Now, I want to do artist shows. I want to put a lot of work and intention behind these shows and showcase new music.
One of my favorite songs on that album is “Mama.” It brings out strong emotions for me, partly because of my own personal connection to the song, but primarily because I can feel your connection and emotions in the very bones of the track. When performing and also in the studio, how do you bring that emotion to your songs?
Man, I don’t know. Sometimes it’s just a feeling. Every time I sing that song, I remember the feeling of when I first wrote it and the place I was in. It wasn’t like I was down and out, but I was thinking about a lot of things and writing. I do a lot of rides home to Cordova after I moved out, so it’s a pretty long commute back from Downtown. I was on the interstate like, “Damn, I just want to call my mom.” There’s something about that connection with your loved ones. Whoever you consider to be a parent or whoever you want to run to and be in their arms and cry and be like, “Boo hoo, look what happened to me.” And I feel like a lot of that is vulnerability. People are scared to be vulnerable and say that their feelings are hurt. And I’m not afraid to say when my feelings are hurt.
So that song comes from that place, of a cry for help and feeling very vulnerable but not really sure what went wrong. Every time I sing it, I feel that again. And that’s really from performing theater. It’s like emulating the feelings and emotions of what that character is going through.
And that translates into the track, a lot of your tracks.
Thank you. I think about my mom and my papa. I was trying to put “Baba” in there because that’s how you say it in Arabic, but it didn’t sound right. So I just kept “Papa.”
Is there anything you’ve learned about your own music from performing it live that has changed how you approach recording in the studio?
One of the biggest things that's had that evolution is “If Summer Was a Man” because I wrote that song so long ago and performed it many times. I got so much feedback from people that loved it and couldn’t wait to hear it. It was so different live from the way I heard it in my head, and I wanted to marry the two. I wanted to release this song forever ago, but instead I let it have its own life as a prequel to this record version. And it always reassured me not to give up on releasing it as a single because of the way people would come up to me after shows and say, “I loved that song in particular.”
And so it informed me, not really of how to approach it, but that song has a feeling in it that I need to capture and translate and let people enjoy. That was the beauty of the live version and also doing a record version, so both versions can have their own life.
I feel like sometimes there’s moments when I’m with the band and I say, “Oh, I like this feel,” and sometimes the way I hit a run on stage, it all happens simultaneously. And it makes me think maybe I should change this. I was really inspired by Raye. She changed her song “Where Is My Husband” from when it was released as a single to what it is on the album.
Oh I didn’t realize that. What did she change?
She added some more to the arrangement. And it’s because she was performing it live before the album came out, and she was being inspired in those moments. You get more information as you let people hear, and I’ve always loved testing new songs at shows. I wanna see how people receive it and see how it feels to perform it. Maybe I find out that this is low in my range, or maybe I can variate this. It just opens opportunities up.
It was cool to see how quickly you started releasing your own music as a freshman in college. I know “Wise Up” was your first single, which came out in 2018. But your 2017 EP DIALOGUE that you did with Roc under the name “I Contact” was also amazing. I still bump “Elsewhere” to this day.
I went back to that a while ago. It would be really cool to do a remastered version. I love those songs.
Yeah, that would be awesome. You came out the gate swinging.
It’s cool to see the evolution too. I remember walking into one of my classes and someone had the EP on their phone and was like, “Is this you?” It was in my Poli Sci class. And I was like, “Yeah, do you like it?”
Your first celebrity moment.
It was weird, but it was so cool to do that and be with Roc. Roc was a really big influence on me, and he encouraged me to go all in. He taught me how to produce and record in Ableton. And then I took it even further and did classes, and then went abroad and kept expanding and advancing my knowledge of music production and audio engineering.
I’ve seen you perform live a lot, but every time it’s a little different. You always have a new vocal riff or a new instrumentation or a new order that tells a different story. I know some of the songs have studio recordings, but others don’t. What is your arrangement process like?
A lot of those arrangements came from me not knowing how to integrate the digital with the analog worlds. That was a slow part of my audio engineering development. It wasn’t hard, but it’s really expensive to buy all of the equipment, to integrate in-ears, and to have tracks going while everybody’s on a click. I’ve always known that’s what it takes, but I was like, that seems like a lot. I should just start where I’m at, and where I was at was I’ve got a bunch of very talented musicians in the city, people that I know, people that I’ve yet to meet. Let me start with asking people to be in my band.
Yeah, I mean, “Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?” as Linda Martell said on Cowboy Carter.
Yeah. And it was an immersive experience that was so influential to me. I listened to Lemonade cover to cover so many times. Not that there hasn’t been an artist that hasn’t done that before, but I think when more popular artists do, it shows you that you can do whatever you want. The music industry sometimes leads with, “Okay, what’s your niche? What’s your genre? How do we categorize you? How do we put you on playlists?” If you’re not all the way in one direction, if you’re in the in-between, it’s hard to put you anywhere. So you don’t get placed. It’s a frustrating truth to navigate, but you have to learn when to shut out the noise and listen to your gut.
I love the Arabic influences in your music, and I’m loving what you’re doing on TikTok and Instagram right now with your viral Arabic versions of pop songs, like with Drake and Dolly.
Oh God, the drama.
Tell me about that. How did that come to be? What made you want to do that?
It’s really been a journey. It’s been a big journey of wanting to integrate my identity into my music somehow, but always feeling like because I’m half-American, half-Arab, I don’t really fit in either one very well. Even though I speak Arabic, I’m not perfectly fluent. I can be as fluent as I can be, and I might sound better than a lot of people. But when I go overseas, they can tell that I’ve got an accent. And then when I’m here, it’s like, “Oh, you’re racially ambiguous, what are you?” And all of these things. I had to learn to embrace both and learn to be happy and be proud of the fact that I’m straddling worlds, and learn how to showcase that. How do I be the most authentic I can be in that middle? There’s such a spectrum of the middle, which is so great. I’ve always found everything to be a spectrum. I feel like being one way or the other, you’re never going to be satisfied. There’s a lot in the middle that goes undiscussed, and that’s where I’m interested. I’m not really interested in being too much this or too much that.
And then I’ve also been taking voice lessons in Arabic, which I started a couple years ago. That was pivotal, great to exercise that muscle. I started learning Arabic from a young age, so this felt like taking things to the next level by bridging my native tongue with my love for making music. That’s why I started doing lessons with my instructor Lubana al-Quntar. She’s been really great. She went back to the basics, making me do what we did in our voice lessons with Carole Blankenship [in college].
Shoutout to Carole!
And then I decided, I don’t know, I was going through it, and I was wanting to be inspired. I’d been working on new music and starting to trickle in Arabic. I’d been putting my feet in that water, but I also wasn’t feeling fully confident in my writing, wanting to be more poetic like I was when I write in English. So I thought about the idea of translating songs into Arabic, so I could work it out like a puzzle, where I’m like, “Okay I know this phrase. If I directly translate it, it sounds like shit, but I can say it like this.” That actually strengthened my Arabic too. And I was leaning on my mom a lot, asking her to help me with grammar. She’s really good at phrases: she’s a translator and interpreter. That was a really wholesome bonding experience between us. I’ll send her a text, “Okay, I just did this. What do you think? Does this sound bad? I feel like this doesn’t really make sense. I don’t know what this word is.” And slowly but surely, I started getting better.
But then I did the Drake thing, and when I tell you, I wrote that all on my own on the way back from a trip. And I just thought, “How badass would it be if it actually sounded good?” I kind of knew that it would perk some ears up or get some eyes on it just for fun because, you know, content is king, and I’m trying to promote all my other shit. I was already thinking of content ideas that I can churn out, and that was one of them. Then people really liked it, so I kept doing different songs. And there’s no hurt feelings because it’s not actually my song. It’s just for fun. But it did naturally act like an Arabic songwriting exercise that I’ve started using to write my own songs. It’s been really cool. It makes me happy; it makes me feel excited and a little nerdy.
That's so fun, and a lot of people loved it.
Yeah a lot of people loved it. A lot of people hated it. And that’s okay.
That is okay. That’s the internet.
Exactly. So I’m kind of leaning into that, but I’m also such a pop girl. I love when I can wrap those two worlds together. So staying true to that, being like, let me trickle this in because I can, but then also let me flex these pop muscles and put together a really good song. It’s always in the name of writing a good song. Here are the tools at my disposal, and I’m allowed to use them if I want to.
I’m gonna figure it out and you’re gonna figure it out with me. That’s how I’m seeing it. I don’t want to go hard left and surprise anybody. This is me as I am. I’m not a very mysterious artist. I take a lot of influence from Zara Larsson; she’s just exactly who she is. And I love that because that’s me. I get flack sometimes from people who are like, “You could really do this elusive thing.” And I’m like, “You meet me in person and think I could be elusive?”
That’s not your vibe, you’re not Frank Ocean.
Hard no. It’s just not possible because I yap too damn much.
I love your pop side. I mean, I think you could give a lot of these pop girls a run for their money. And you do.
Oh man, that’s such a compliment. I can’t wait for these new songs, and I can’t wait to get better. This is where I’m at now. I’m excited to see where that’s gonna go.
I can't believe it's been a decade of knowing you first of all. We met in 2016.
I know. Wild.
I feel like when I met you, I was immediately introduced to your amazing performing abilities, as we did theater, choir, and vocal performance together.
I feel like we shared that love though.
We did share that, and it was really fun. I'm curious what made you want to be a performer, specifically that part of your craft. Where did that start?
My mom has told me that I've always been very flamboyant, and I’d be on tables dancing and singing for the family, coming up with fun musicals, and inviting my mom and grandma to my room to perform a play. I've always been singing, and I just love to express myself that way. But I initially put singing and music to the side as I grew up. It came back around when I saw theater for the first time, and I was like, that looks so fun.
Where did you see theater for the first time?
It was at Germantown High School, one of the fall plays. I don't remember the name, but I just remember thinking, “That looks like the time of my life. I want to be there.” And so I tried out for the musical that spring, and it just clicked. In the audition experience too, just getting to experience that and shake off the nerves.
What was the first musical you auditioned for?
The Wiz, which we had no business doing The Wiz at Germantown. But you know, that's a conversation for another day. But I was a pit singer, and that was such a great experience. And then I did it all throughout high school, and I did the thespian troupe.
Another part I remember vividly was doing karaoke at one of the high school thespian conferences. I sang “Lady Marmalade,” which is one of my favorite karaoke songs. I just remember people weren't around, no one was doing the karaoke, and I really wanted to sing. So I did. And I start seeing people coming from everywhere to join in and do karaoke. It was such a unifying experience of gathering and enjoying the musical experience and that exchange of energy. I got such a rush, such a high from that. And I remember calling my mom and saying “I want to do this forever, this is so fun!” How fun is it to be someone that stops people in their tracks and makes them pay attention to something and then want to have their turn.
You're a Memphis musical theater legend. You did the High School Musical Theater Awards, right? Like the Jimmy Awards.
Yes, I did. Well, I didn't get into the Jimmy Awards.
But you did the local level.
Local level, yeah. And it was such a fun experience too, getting to bond with everybody and be a theater nerd.
Ugh I love theater.
I love theater.
I miss it. Do you miss theater?
I do, all the time.
You see it on your horizon?
I’d love to yeah, I would. But I don't know. It has to be, I guess, the right moment. And I'm so out of practice.
It would come back.
It can come back for sure.
How does theater inform the art that you make now?
I just think big voices and big performances have always captivated me. I love big vocals. I love being moved in that way. And then lyrically, I find it so witty. Anything goes. But there's also rhyme and formula with the spontaneity.
I used to write in a little songbook when I was younger. That’s how I started writing. And I never said anything to anybody about it. I would just sing about the day: walk around my house and sing about the experience. That was my earliest memory of being a writer, being a singer, wanting to perform, and all that. So yeah, I think confidence on stage came from theater. And being present and big, bold, everything. A transfer of energy, you know?
his is giving America’s Next Top Model,” Raneem says, as Anthony instructs her to climb onto some cinder
cinder blocks and serve face. Just outside the frame, I’m on fan duty, waving a folded cardboard box at Raneem. Tyra would be proud of us.
Welcome to a Raneem Imam photoshoot: glamorous and unpredictable. For this one, Raneem and photographer Anthony Lorenzo used whatever was around them to bring their vision to life. There were some cinder blocks, a microphone cord, a headless mannequin, and a random couch involved. What started as a photoshoot quickly became a playground.
That’s Anthony, though. He approaches creativity like world-building, crafting a fully realized world from even the simplest of ideas. He’s one of Memphis’ most exciting photographers, best known for his self-portraits, where he creates surreal, playful scenes through stylized editing, props, color, and storytelling. That same imagination extends into how he collaborates with music artists. He’s photographed album covers, promotional shoots, editorials, and other visual projects for artists, finding ways to translate their music into a visual world of its own.
A few days before climbing onto cinder blocks and posing with a microphone cord wrapped around her heel, Raneem was sitting on my couch, catching up like we always do, except this time with an audio recording device on hand. It’s really fun to see Raneem in fashion editorial pop star mode one day and old college friend mode the next. And maybe that’s the best way to meet her.
Raneem Imam is a singer, songwriter, producer, and performer from Memphis, TN. She’s been steadily building a world of her own since her first single “Wise Up” in 2018, carving out a lane for herself in pop, R&B, and beyond. Since then, she’s released her 2021 EP Peace of Mind, which has been performed across the country and around the world. In 2025, she returned with her first live album, raneem & better in color, capturing the energy of the music she’d spent years bringing to the stage. And this year, she’s followed it with two singles: “All the Time” and “If Summer Was a Man,” both accompanied by gorgeous music videos directed by her friend and creative director Parnian.
Maybe you’ve seen her online with her viral Arabic renditions of pop hits. Maybe you’ve caught her on tour. Maybe you’ve seen her on a theater stage. Raneem has a way of being everywhere all at once.
But for all of that ambition, Raneem is remarkably grounded and humble. There’s no sense that she’s waiting around for someone to tell her she’s arrived. She’s too busy writing, producing, performing, experimenting, and finding the next thing that excites her. Then doing it all over again.
Read her interview with William McLain (Saturn’s Groove) below.
his is giving America’s Next Top Model,” Raneem says, as Anthony instructs her to climb onto some cinder blocks and serve face. Just outside the frame, I’m on fan duty, waving a folded cardboard box at Raneem. Tyra would be proud of us.
Welcome to a Raneem Imam photoshoot: glamorous and unpredictable. For this one, Raneem and photographer Anthony Lorenzo used whatever was around them to bring their vision to life. There were some cinder blocks, a microphone cord, a headless mannequin, and a random couch involved. What started as a photoshoot quickly became a playground.
That’s Anthony, though. He approaches creativity like world-building, crafting a fully realized world from even the simplest of ideas. He’s one of Memphis’ most exciting photographers, best known for his self-portraits, where he creates surreal, playful scenes through stylized editing, props, color, and storytelling. That same imagination extends into how he collaborates with music artists. He’s photographed album covers, promotional shoots, editorials, and other visual projects for artists, finding ways to translate their music into a visual world of its own.
A few days before climbing onto cinder blocks and posing with a microphone cord wrapped around her heel, Raneem was sitting on my couch, catching up like we always do, except this time with an audio recording device on hand. It’s really fun to see Raneem in fashion editorial pop star mode one day and old college friend mode the next. And maybe that’s the best way to meet her.
Raneem Imam is a singer, songwriter, producer, and performer from Memphis, TN. She’s been steadily building a world of her own since her first single “Wise Up” in 2018, carving out a lane for herself in pop, R&B, and beyond. Since then, she’s released her 2021 EP Peace of Mind, which has been performed across the country and around the world. In 2025, she returned with her first live album, raneem & better in color, capturing the energy of the music she’d spent years bringing to the stage. And this year, she’s followed it with two singles: “All the Time” and “If Summer Was a Man,” both accompanied by gorgeous music videos directed by her friend and creative director Parnian.
Maybe you’ve seen her online with her viral Arabic renditions of pop hits. Maybe you’ve caught her on tour. Maybe you’ve seen her on a theater stage. Raneem has a way of being everywhere all at once.
But for all of that ambition, Raneem is remarkably grounded and humble. There’s no sense that she’s waiting around for someone to tell her she’s arrived. She’s too busy writing, producing, performing, experimenting, and finding the next thing that excites her. Then doing it all over again.
Read her interview with William McLain (Saturn’s Groove) below.
