Photo of nikotine by bernard okulaja
BIO
NIKOTINE (Arabic: نيكوتين بيروت) is a Lebanese-Canadian singer-songwriter and cabaret artist based between Toronto and Montréal. Born in Beirut, Lebanon - a city whose history of beauty, rupture, and survival runs through everything she makes - Nikotine performs original multilingual music she calls "Arabian glam rock" and "mystical nomadic cabaret": a sound that moves between Fairuz and Freddie Mercury.
Her influences span two worlds. In the Arab tradition: Fairuz, Assala, Majida El Roumi, and Julia Boutros - vocalists whose careers weave classical Arabic music and dramatic pop. In the West: Freddie Mercury, Prince, Sylvester, Nina Hagen, and Klaus Nomi - artists defined by theatrical performance, glam, and queer iconography. Beyond music, the poetry of Rumi and Rilke inform her lyrical sensibility.
Nikotine is the co-creator, writer, host, and live singer of CABARET: The Dancing Djinn, a two-hour queer Arab drag and musical theatre production built alongside bellydancer and burlesque artist Samara. Drawing on the history of the Mukhannathun (Arabic: المخنثون) - trans-feminine performers who held celebrated roles in medieval Andalusian and Arab court culture before being erased by colonialism and religious repression - the show has been described by The Link as "a reclamation of erased queer Arab histories." Since its debut in Montréal in January 2025, The Dancing Djinn has sold out venues across Canada. All profits from every performance are donated to displaced families in Beirut and humanitarian relief in Gaza.
Nikotine is currently recording her debut studio album - a multilingual original record spanning Arabic and English, with sessions across Paris, Beirut, and Canada.
INFLUENCES
Fairuz · Abdel Halim Hafez · Assala · Majida El Roumi · Julia Boutros ·
Freddie Mercury · Prince · Sylvester · Nina Hagen · Klaus Nomi
Rumi · Rainer Maria Rilke · Carl Jung
CABARET: THE DANCING DJINN
CABARET: The Dancing Djinn is a two-hour Lebanese and queer musical theatre production co-created by Nikotine and bellydancer Samara. The show follows Nikotine as a wanderer crossing a desert with a magic lamp - inside the lamp is Samara, the exiled djinn Queen of Queerabia, whose release triggers a journey through mythology, desire, and queer Arab history.
Described as "an anti-colonial Aladdin," the show fuses original live Arabic and English music, dramatic monologues, comedy, crowd participation, and Baladi dance. It draws explicitly on the history of the Mukhannathun - the gender-nonconforming performers who held celebrated roles in medieval Arab and Andalusian courts, and whose existence was erased by centuries of colonialism, crusades, and religious repression.
"We wanted to tell the story truly how it is. What we lived through, inspired by the past, that was wiped out by colonialism, crusaders, religion and politics."
The show has sold out venues across Canada since its January 2025 debut and attracted audiences travelling from as far as Halifax. All profits are donated to displaced families in Beirut and humanitarian relief in Gaza.
THE MUKHANANTHUN
The Mukhannathun (Arabic: المخنثون) were trans-feminine or gender-nonconforming performers who occupied celebrated, respected roles in medieval Andalusian and broader Arab court culture. Singers, poets, entertainers, and advisors to caliphs, they represent a vibrant queer tradition within Arab history that has been systematically erased.
Nikotine's encounter with traces of this history during a visit to the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain - through the scholarship of historians Dr. Ali Olomi and Dr. Borjan Grozdanoski - was a turning point in the development of her artistic identity and the concept behind The Dancing Djinn.