This exceptional understanding of the human condition is what sets Wafia, who identifies as both Arab and queer, apart from other pop acts. Her 2015 cover of Mario’s “Let Me Love You” earned five million SoundCloud streams. A year later, she won the attention of Pharrell Williams, who played her track “Heartburn” on his Beats1 radio show. Both Jaden Smith at and Kylie Jenner would follow in kind, by giving her social-media shout outs. (“It really snowballed,” she says, looking back.) By 2020, her EP Good Things — actually about a toxic relationship — was being heralded by NPR as the “perfect pandemic soundtrack.” Today, she has nearly two million Spotify monthly global listeners, and recently signed with Nettwerk Music Group.