Written by Will Jones
There is a moment on "Enta Lee" where the language switches, and if you are not paying attention you might miss how incredible it is.
Allison Amber Hage moves from English into Arabic without a seam, without a novelty flourish, without the production stepping aside to announce that something is happening. The Arabic is not a garnish on an American pop record. It is half the song. And she wrote every word of it herself.
That detail is the one worth sitting with. Plenty of artists with heritage in a second language bring in a translator, or hand the section to a native writer, or lean on a producer to make the phonetics work. Allison did the opposite. She sat with the language and played with it, chasing rhymes across Arabic words until they landed the way she wanted them to.
"The Arabic portion was entirely written by me," she says, and she calls it her favorite part of making the record. When an artist tells you which piece of a song they enjoyed most, that is usually where the real work went.
"It means a lot to me that I get to portray my Lebanese heritage in this song," she says. That heritage is not new information for anyone who has followed her catalogue, but it is worth noting that her audience has already voted on it.
Her most-streamed song is "Mabrouk," released in 2024, which has crossed 118,000 streams on Spotify. "Habibi," from 2025, has cleared 53,000.
Two of her five biggest records are the two that reach into Arabic. This is not an artist taking a risk on a cultural detour. This is an artist going back to the lane her listeners have already told her they want her in, and going further into it than she ever has.
What makes "Enta Lee" different from those two is the balance. Where earlier records used Arabic as accent and texture, this one splits the difference down the middle, half in Arabic and half in English, built so that neither audience is a guest in the other's song. Both sides get a full record.
"I love that it is written half in Arabic and half in English, allowing both my audiences to enjoy it," she says. For an artist with over a million followers on Instagram and listeners spread from California to Beirut, that is not a creative gimmick. That is architecture.
The way she built it says as much as the finished record does. She started by sitting with references, pulling from the Lebanese artists she grew up on, before a single note was written. When the first sample tracks came back, she picked the one she connected with and sent notes specifying which Lebanese instruments she wanted worked into it. That is an artist directing a record, not receiving one.
The lyrics came after the sound was right, which is the correct order and a rarer discipline than it sounds. Marc Williams, Saeed Renaud, Halle Massi, and LEMOYNE Alexander all worked on it with her, and once the studio session wrapped, the team layered in the background vocals that give the chorus its size before taking it to master.
The result is a genuine fusion rather than a costume, which is the distinction that separates this kind of record from the many that attempt it.
Ragheb Alama, Nancy Ajram, and Carole Samaha are the names she came up on, and "Enta Lee" sits comfortably in conversation with all three while remaining unmistakably a pop record made in America.
Collaborations between Allison and any of those artists would make an enormous amount of sense, and we would love to see it happen.
The rest of her numbers back the case. She is sitting near 14,000 monthly listeners on Spotify with more than 3,500 followers on the platform, and that follower figure is the one that matters most. Streams can arrive from anywhere.
Followers are people who heard something, went looking for the artist behind it, and decided to stay.
She has five songs with meaningful streaming traction behind her and a catalogue that has been quietly compounding for three years.
She is not slowing down to let this one breathe, either.
"I'm very excited to wrap up the year with some new Christmas music projects," she says, and that is becoming something of a tradition.
She has released a Christmas single every year since 2023, from "Christmas Everyday" to "The True Meaning of Christmas" to last year's "Grown-Up Christmas List."
Add whatever is coming this December and that is four straight holiday seasons with new music from an independent artist who is also, somehow, keeping a release schedule most labeled acts would find demanding.
"Enta Lee" is the clearest statement she has made yet about who she is as an artist. Two languages, one record, no compromise on either half.
Stream "Enta Lee" on Spotify and follow Allison Amber Hage on Instagram.
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