ABIR Is Not Playing Anymore

For ABIR, the act of creation has taken on new meaning. As she prepares to share her debut album, and first project in more than 5 years, the Moroccan-American musician is also revealing that she is expecting her first child – a surprise that mirrors the sense of anticipation already surrounding her music. Both journeys have unfolded quietly, and over time; a private post-pandemic marriage and a project of twelve tracks shaped by patience, vulnerability, and care. Now, as she readies to release her work into the world and step into motherhood, ABIR finds herself preparing for two beginnings, each carrying its own heartbeat. 

The Game, ABIR’s follow up to her fiery 2020 EP Heat, tracks a relationship through its phases – or quarters. The album feels deeper, more mature than her previous work. You can hear how confident and settled in herself ABIR has become in the layers of her track. The project is overarching, each track blending into the next. It tells a story – one of how to play the game of love, but the real opponent is your pride, your ego, your past traumas. You can’t win the game of love without being a good teammate, a good partner. And you don’t win a trophy, you’re rewarded with growth, love and a lifetime of support. You leave the game permanently changed. 

The album cover, captured when ABIR was seven months pregnant, emblematic of the new chapter she’s about to step into – in more ways than one. 

“I’ve entered a part of myself where there’s no people-pleasing,  there’s no worry about what this person’s going to think about it. It’s just making art that feels true to myself and my emotions and where I’m at right now,” ABIR says of her latest work.  “That gap again, from 2020, to 2025, I’ve become a totally different person. And who’s to say in the next five years, you’ll get a totally different perspective. I feel like that growth is the one thing that’s ever changing.  I definitely felt more confident and more settled. That’s the perfect word. I felt more settled in who I was then.” 

The Game presents itself as a cohesive project, it ebbs and flows following ABIR’s personal and sensationalized journey through falling in love, heartbreak and finally, self growth and trust. It’s part confessional, part internal monologue, giving her listeners court-side seats. It’s an impressive debut album from an artist who spent the early years of her career laying the groundwork, waiting for this moment. 

ABIR says of her inspiration, “I was just thinking of the storytelling of the 90s, or early 2000s where you were just getting super direct, conversational lyrics. Witty and kind of sassy lyrics. Some of the inspirations were Ashanti, J Lo. There was not much that you had to dig through to try to understand. You just kind of got it at face value.” And while the tracks may not be autobiographical, ABIR says that like any artist, her work draws from personal experiences. 

“A lot of the songs are so much of what happened [to me], and coming to terms with who I was, and accepting all those flaws. And then being able to grow, and see where I need growth. So at the end [of the album] it’s such a hopeful moment of accepting what’s coming into your life, that’s just so beautiful.” 

The opening track, Butterflies, sounds like the feeling of a first crush. It’s airy, ABIR’s vocals literally fluttering and she sings to the object of her new affections, “I need you just like water.” This is the kick off, where our journey begins. But this project isn’t about a schoolgirl crush – it’s the journey of a woman ready for commitment and real love. She’s playing The Game, but only with herself, trying to find the meaning in what love really is to her. “What does a “win” look like to me?” seems to be the underlying question. 

We hear how serious her intentions are in the next track, Made 4 U. “You must be God’s favorite. ‘Cause I ain’t nothing to play with,” she says at the very top. “He blessed you with my love,” the first of many spiritual connections made on the album. ABIR makes the link between love and divinity throughout the project. 

With Holy Water, she again yearns for divine intervention, calling for the “need to start over, dip yourself in holy water.” The song is slow, more thoughtful, again leaving her fate up to something bigger. “As God as my witness, I’m choosing the chaos,” she says on another track, Nothing New, also the lead single from the album. It’s exactly this deep presence of her spirituality that separates ABIR from the typical R&B artist – her music feels more like a hymn at times, praising the careful omniscient hand making all the moves. But is that not love? Doing your best and letting God or a higher power take care of the rest? 

“I do find that spirituality has a great way of grounding people and reminding them that there’s more to life than an argument. There’s something greater, something bigger. Spirituality helps you with empathy and putting yourself in other people’s shoes, as opposed to thinking the world revolves around you. It’s an important characteristic in a partner.” 

“Do you believe in God?” ABIR asks on the third song, Q+A, again drawing that connection between spirituality and attraction. Perhaps the most direct song on the album, the listener is given unfettered access to both the questions our fictionalized ABIR asks of a potential partner, but also in the latter half of the song, her own thoughts and feelings on the interaction. The vocals stand alone with very little tracking and minimal percussion, making the moment a stand alone on the project, but also calls the listener into attention. This is an important moment, the crux of building a new relationship, the end of the first quarter. 

While the album is a deeper, more mature development from ABIR’s last compilation, the songs are still fun. Her love for classic R&B shines through, weaved into every track like a courtside timer. The songs evoke millennial favorites like Brandy and Destiny’s Child, but also more recent hitmakers like Sza, Jazmine Sullivan and Ariana Grande. The production and layering of ABIR’s vocals refresh the sound, making it sound nostalgic but new all at once. 

So Dumb, perhaps the spiciest track on the project, showcases ABIR’s deep love for the genre. Expertly produced by Nes, the song is an homage to Whitney Houston’s “It’s not right, but it’s okay,” but again, with that ear-worm quality that refreshes and revives the sound. The first hurdle in the journey of love, ABIR’s fictionalized persona is fed up with her partner’s “Lying, cheating, acting so deceiving,” giving us the biggest R&B moment on the album. It’s a vibe. 

The album’s analogy comes to a head on the titular track, The Game. “I wrote that before we even had the concept of the album. And I wrote that song, because I was starting to see how love could almost feel like a game in the sense that there’s different phases to it. Maybe you’re feeling excited. Maybe you’re feeling in the first quarter, you’re really amped. And in the second quarter, you could feel yourself slowing down. You take a break at halftime, you’re kind of regrouping. It was a very vulnerable thing to admit that I was potentially losing this person, and being able to put that into words, in the way that could actually come out, like, ‘hey, like, we’re almost there. We just gotta hang in there. We just gotta get through this. This is the fourth quarter. Don’t give up.’ Yeah, that was really difficult.” 

Something Real feels the most reminiscent of ABIR’s earlier work. The strings and vocal arrangement feel distinctly Middle Eastern, with ABIR even quoting Amr Diab’s “Tamally Maak” as the main inspiration. Thematically, this throwback feels intentional – ABIR’s persona is speaking to her partner, trying to apologize for letting her pride and ego get in the way, as if taken over by bad habits and old patterns she was once trying to break. 

Prove my love should be the epic conclusion, but there are two more tracks on the album. The lyrics summarize the entire journey. The album continues with Loud & Clear, an inner interlude, almost an out of body experience for our protagonist. It’s short and sweet, and again, an angel number, a symbol of her deep belief in the connectivity between her love and her lord. Her partner is her savior sent from above. A clear reversal of her earlier stance where she was the gift from God. But the Game isn’t over yet. 

The final track, Stretch Marks, holds a special significance for obvious reasons. Stretch marks are an explicit mark of pregnancy, but also that she has been permanently changed. Her body, but also her spirit, her heart and her character. It’s a lullaby, a love song. 

“Originally, I was going to write a song to my unborn child, and I was also trying to find a way to end the album in a way that feels like a win. And obviously, in my head, this is the ultimate win,” ABIR says. “Stretch marks is a beautiful note to my unborn child, but also it feels like the growing pains that you go through with a partner. When creating art, building a relationship and creating a human being [during pregnancy] you go through those same growing pains. It was one of those other songs that I was just freestyling, and I saw stretch marks on my skin, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is perfect’.”  

With this project finally released on September 10th, ABIR says she’ll take a few months to adjust to motherhood, but making music will stay top of mind. “I really want to get back in the studio and just see where my brain takes me, just from my experiences over those first few months [of being a mom].” With her last project released during the pandemic’s peak, ABIR was robbed of many opportunities to perform that material for a live audience. So touring The Game is also a top priority. “I want to be singing these songs [live] because they feel so vocally challenging and something that I want to share with the world. So hopefully we’ll do a tour.” 

“It’s been such an incredible experience putting music out while being pregnant, and finally being able to talk about it. It makes it all so real.” 

With The Game, ABIR proves she’s no longer waiting for her moment – she’s claiming it. The album is both a testament to her evolution and a bold declaration of her arrival, weaving together vulnerability, faith, and hard-won confidence into a body of work that feels timeless. Now, as she steps into motherhood and a new era of artistry, ABIR isn’t just playing the game – she’s rewriting the rules, cementing her place as one of R&B’s most compelling voices, ready to take the stage on her own terms.