Hazwani’s song for Palestine
Reflecting myself in their struggles and battles for freedom, I felt a deep responsibility to share their message of hope and resilience with fellow Malaysians.
HUMANITARIAN activist and actress Nur Hazwani Helmi, 27, has come up with her first solo single titled ‘You Are Not Alone’ (YANA). Hazwani was previously in The Helmis with her elder sister, Heliza, and had a duet with Sigma titled ‘Wahana’ last year.
YANA is written and composed by Hazwani with Wan Saleh as the arranger. It is produced by Nurflix Productions.
Interestingly, the song was recorded shortly after Hazwani returned from a humanitarian mission to assist displaced families in Gaza in 2019.
According to Hazwani, YANA marks a milestone in her singing career.
“This song is old, from 2019, when I just came back from a humanitarian mission in Gaza.
“At that time, many of us were inspired to tell all Palestinians that they are not alone, and that people around the world are in solidarity with them.
“One of my fellow humanitarian activists suggested that I come up with a song for the children of Palestine, and I thought it would be a superb idea to do so.
“When I touched down in Kuala Lumpur, I had a rough idea of how the song’s melody would sound like.
“It took some time for me to come up with the appropriate lyrics. At times I couldn’t think of what to pen down, as I was overwhelmed with emotion because of the pain and suffering they had to endure.”
It was only during Ramadan last year, specifically the 27th day of Ramadan, that Hazwani finally got the “right” lyrics to complete YANA.
“It looked like the 27th day of Ramadan brought blessings to me. It was on that day that I finally found the right things to say in my song. “The lyrics were completed in less than 10 minutes.”
Hazwani added that the fighting spirit of the Palestinian children had inspired her to come up with an anthem in honour of them and their parents.
“I stand strong not because of myself, but because of the Palestinian child in me. “Because I was so inspired by their bravery and resilience, I returned to the recording studio.
“Reflecting myself in their struggles and battles for freedom, I felt a deep responsibility to share their message of hope and resilience with fellow Malaysians,” said Hazwani.
Hazwani said her family was 100 per cent behind her new song and its message.
“The humanitarian message in the song is actually the challenges of everyday life.
“This involves family matters, sibling rivalries, spousal arguments, divorce, separation, heartbreak, homelessness, loneliness and hunger.
“YANA takes all of these issues in mind and strives to mobilise the thoughts and feelings of the Malaysian and global community so that they can better appreciate and understand the challenges faced by the long-suffering people of Palestine.
“The Palestinians, regardless of age, face a life and death situation as one of the nations which have been enduring occupation, oppression and terrorism for the longest time.
“All of the problems and issues which are highlighted in my song have a deep impact on the people of Palestine, and their suffering needs to be continuously highlighted so that more people, especially Malaysians, get to better understand their struggle which is a mission to create a better world for themselves and the rest of us.”
Hazwani said her song’s title is a prayer for a better world for the Palestinians and everyone in general.
“It makes us realise that only with His grace, all problems of life can be solved. In addition, the prayer reminds us not to rely on our own weak selves, but to place our full trust in God,” she said.
YANA is an inaugural project of the Industrial Training students at Nurflix who comprise film students from Universiti Teknologi MARA, students of Yayasan Kolej Melaka majoring in Multimedia and Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia students majoring in Communications.
“The poignant music video for YANA was directed by Imran Hakim. It is a virtual production with a cyberpunk background and was produced using Unreal Engine technology. It is fully state-of-theart and I love it.
“To really appreciate the meaning of this song, music lovers need to watch the music video,” she said.