Brooklyn-born actor, singer, and filmmaker Malek Hanna drops “Ride” on April 3rd, his follow-up to “Ya Jama’a” – the multilingual single he released in February alongside Latin Grammy winner Paulina Aguirre and Christine Said, runner-up on The Voice Middle East.
Hanna has a CV that reads like a lot of things at once: studied at Fordham, Juilliard, and UCLA, performed as a soloist at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II, sang the national anthem for the LA Lakers at the Staples Center, and appeared as a contestant on The Voice Arabia. “Ride” is tied to “The Gunfighter,” an upcoming Latin-led, gritty superhero film, where it functions as both a standalone single and a narrative engine for the project.
Where “Ya Jama’a” leaned into multilingual warmth and communal energy, “Ride” ventures into darker and more cinematic territory. It’s a rock-soul burner built on driving rhythms and raw vocal power, and Hanna’s voice, which carries a serious range, is the focal point throughout. The production keeps things taut and purposeful, the kind of arrangement that earns the word cinematic without needing to oversell it. Each section of the song unfolds with enough intention that it feels almost scene-by-scene, which makes sense given its film context. The chorus has that slow-motion quality to it, the kind of moment a song like this needs to justify its ambition, and it delivers.
Two singles in, the range is already clear – from the communal warmth of “Ya Jama’a” to the gritty urgency of “Ride.” With a full album on the way later this year, Hanna is building toward something with real shape to it. Worth paying attention to where this goes.
