Zahed Sultan is a multimedia artist, culture producer, filmmaker, and social entrepreneur of Kuwaiti-Indian heritage based in London, England. He has performed and presented his work internationally. Sultan is particularly known for his live audio-visual-dance performances.
Music
Career beginnings Sultan began his career as a teenager, DJing for both mixed and segregated parties in Kuwait. During his time in college, he worked as a promoter for nightclubs around Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Sultan wrote his first track using a PC and an analog Roland sampler to program and sequence the song. Several years later, he created a small body of work entitled illusive for a local exhibition in Kuwait and won third place in DJ Sasha's Involver remix competition with Global Underground and Ableton. Sultan's remix was later signed by Sasha's label Xpander to the TV series Crime Scene Investigation (CSI).
Releases Sultan released his debut album Hi Fear, Lo Love in 2011, and the music reflected his own cultural background. Its first single, "I Saw Her, I Fell For Her", was licensed to the movie 11.6, directed by Philippe Godeau. Its second single, "I Want Her But I Don't Want Her", was featured on Stephane Pompougnac's internationally acclaimed Hôtel Costes, Vol. 15 compilation, becoming the first modern track from the Persian Gulf area to be featured on a global music compilation. MTV Iggy featured Sultan's third single, "Walkin Away", and highlighted Sultan as an emerging artist from the Middle East. The album was followed up with a string of remixes by emerging artists.
In 2012, Sultan released an EP titled Reuse Me for an eco-friendly exhibition he organizes in Kuwait called REUSE. The song "Like This" from the EP won favourable reviews by a number of online magazines and blogs, such as The East / West Sound. In 2013, Sultan was also featured on O2 Academy TV in London, UK.
In 2014, Sultan released "Ghazi", the first single from his second album eyeamsound, which provided a glimpse into the alternative electronic sound of the record. A second single, "Democrazy", followed in 2015, and the album was released worldwide that summer. Musically, Sultan describes the songs on the album as having "a lot of texture and body to them". On the album, he mostly sings in Arabic and English. With titles such as "Bedoon", the third single inspired by the life of stateless people in Kuwait, Sultan took a distinctively more socio-political route. Music from the album was featured on Hype Machine and a short film released by Red Bull highlighted his sound and live performance format. "Strengthening Sultan's rapidly increasing discography", in 2016 he released the single "Cake & Butter". "Venturing into the alt-rock genre in his own unique way," Sultan's vocals on the song "bear some resemblance to the Lizard King himself, The Doors' Jim Morrison."
In 2017, Sultan released the Hiwar Sessions EP, which featured dub and experimental remixes of heritage pearl-diving songs by emerging producers from Kingston, Ramallah, Beirut, and Bombay. In 2018, he released another EP to support his first music documentary film, Vibrations. He recorded the EP at Bob Marley's Tuff Gong Studios in Kingston, Jamaica, with young musicians from the reggae and dancehall scenes. The EP featured two single releases, "Mama Bamba" (2017) and "Monkey Riddim" (2018).
In 2020, Sultan released "Layl", a cinematic "homage to the '70s disco song "Do You Love Me" by Lebanese group The Bendaly Family, [...] and by taking a darker and more sombre path, the song took on a deeper meaning of love and loss». Soon after, Sultan released "Ana", a folk-pop song that reimagines the legendary singer and late poet from the Western Sahara, Mariem Hassan's song "Arrabi al Arabe". Sultan adds beats, percussions, and synths, and sings with Mariem in Arabic to build on calls of freedom and unity. In a follow-up to "Ana", Sultan released "Hindi Majnoon" in 2021, a pop-nostalgia song and music video about being bullied for being half-Indian while growing up in Kuwait. In 2022, he released "Dalal" and "Dalal – Instrumental", a reimagined version of "Asho", an iconic '90s party song from Kuwait by Miami Band. In the song, Sultan "reframes the lyrics and melody into an intimate piano/orchestral ballad that explores themes of loss and separation from loved ones".
In 2023, Sultan released the El Remixes EP, a collection of three songs "Layl", "Hindi Majnoon", and "Dalal" which he reimagined into dance / club tracks that take listeners on a journey through the artist's Pop Nostalgia sound. In 2025, Sultan released "INTI", a crossover song that brings together contemporary Afrobeats and Dancehall fused with traditional Arabian Gulf percussions, nostalgic 80s synths and playful Arabic rhythmic vocals.
In an interview with London Live, Sultan described his music as "alternative electronic", using live instrumentation as well as electronic music to "fuse those worlds in a live scenario [and blur] the lines between analog and digital". Sultan's music and performance style continues to evolve using a cross-disciplinary approach. "His creativity manifests in a seemingly endless repertoire of cool masks, each one an art in its own right."
Live performance Sultan puts a great focus on collaboration, in the studio and when performing live. He has worked with emerging and established artists from around the world, including Europe, Asia and North America on various multimedia projects.
In 2015, Sultan was part of Doug Aitken's Station to Station: A 30 Day Happening at the Barbican Centre in London, UK, for the Shubbak Festival. During a short on-site residency at the Gallery, Sultan created an "immersive experience", drawing from past live performances and music supported by artists from different disciplines. That same year, The Vinyl Factory released a short film of the project.
Another project that highlights Sultan's live performance style is his project Hiwar which reimagines traditional pearl-diving music from the Persian Gulf region. Hiwar was developed in Sharjah in 2016 and then reproduced in Dubai in 2017, to kick off the inaugural RBMA Weekender in the Arab region. Sultan also premiered a short film related to the project, alongside an in-depth interview with RBMA discussing "the utilitarian purpose of pearl-diving music, the evolution of related forms in the Persian Gulf and how to celebrate cultural diversity without being a purist. That same year, Zahed was commissioned to re-imagine and perform land, mountain and sea music from Oman supported by local and international artists. Boiler Room 4:3 released a short film about the project in 2018. The film was also included in The Place I Call Home exhibition, which toured cities in the UK and Persian Gulf from 2019 to 2020. Sultan continues to develop and perform Hiwar in various audio, visual and dance formats in the Middle East, North Africa, the UK and Europe.
In 2019, Sultan performed a Soundbath project in London to "explore the potentiality for electronic music to be a source of healing".
Music production In addition to his own projects, Sultan has worked as a music producer for Saudi Arabian singer / songwriter tamtam, on her debut single / remixes EP Little Girl in 2012 and her Games EP in 2014.
In 2017, Sultan contributed to composer and conceptual-artist Fatima Al Qadiri's EP Shaneera as the vocals tracking engineer for the album at his recording studio in Kuwait, contributing to ″a safe space where they could be at ease″.
In 2020, Sultan produced two songs "CONTROL" and "WAYWTD" for Yemeni/British artist intibint's debut EP What Are You Willing To Do.
Film Having released music videos and short films between 2011 and 2017, Sultan completed his first documentary film, Vibrations, in 2018, which he co-directed and executive produced. The film follows Sultan's journey as he re-imagines heritage music from Kuwait in the form of a cultural exchange with young musicians in Kingston, Jamaica, while emphasizing the role social and political challenges played in forming a vibrant, creative community in the country today. Vibrations received special screenings in London and Kuwait in 2018, each included a short performance and q&a with the audience. Vibrations was also screened in film festivals and independent cinemas from 2018 to 2019 and received awards at the Scandinavian International Film Festival and Houston International Film and Video Festival and official selections by the Brighton Rocks Film Festival and Amsterdam International Filmmaker Festival.
Sultan continues to release short films through his work in live performance and culture.
Culture
While developing his music career, Sultan has put an emphasis on environmental awareness. This can be traced back to an exhibition he created in 2007 called REUSE, which promoted eco-friendly living through art. Various editions of the exhibition featured up-and-coming talents from Kuwait through to renowned international artists such as Hassan Hajjaj and Jose Gonzalez. In 2016, Sultan redirected the exhibition's focus "to create a space for artists and audiences to interact using digital media, with an emphasis on light, sound and physical performance." REUSE was presented in Dubai in 2017 and most recently at The Scientific Center in Kuwait in 2019 to "offer people the opportunity to investigate and make their own decisions about complex environmental issues."
In 2019, Sultan was honoured with the HSSE Award by Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company (KIPIC) for his work in striving to raise eco-awareness in the region. "It's about [nurturing] a kind of citizen who is aware of their imprint on the system," says Sultan.
Sultan has also been referred to as "Kuwait's one-man music industry" and "the man single-handedly pushing it forward". In 2014, he compiled a soundscape for the travelling design exhibition titled Islamopolitan that featured contemporary music from the Middle East, which showed in Sharjah, Istanbul, Milan and Kuwait. In 2015, Sultan created the Kuwait Rising music festival with Red Bull to feature emerging music from the Arab world and beyond. Over the years, the festival has hosted artists from South Asia, MENA, Europe, UK and US such as Joss Stone and HVOB. The festival faced public backlash in 2019 when Lebanese band Mashrou' Leila was invited to perform "on the basis that they 'promote homosexuality' which is strongly condemned." In 2017, Sultan was invited by UK music blog Stamp The Wax to create a City Guide to his favourite places in Kuwait, along with a music mix of emerging talent from the country. "Zahed is helping grow Kuwait's unique underground music scene and put the Arab city on the international alternative music scene's map." In 2020, he introduced a new rhythm and poetry series called G.O.A.T to highlight artists shaping culture and society.