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Media contact: info@harrisj.co.uk

Short biography

74 words

Harris J is a London-born singer and songwriter whose music sits between British pop and faith-inspired song. Discovered through Awakening’s 2013 talent competition, he released his debut album Salam in 2015; the video for its lead single “Salam Alaikum” has since passed 140 million views on YouTube. After several years making pop and R&B, he returned to faith-inspired music with the 2025 EP Revival, which includes “Qalbi Fil Madinah”, his duet with Maher Zain.

Long biography

Beginnings

Born in London in 1997, Harris J grew up singing — performing at school and singing nasheeds from a young age. In 2013, aged sixteen, he entered a talent competition run on social media by the record label Awakening. He won, and was signed.

He continued his studies alongside his early recording career, graduating from the BRIT School of Performing Arts in London in July 2015.

Salam

His debut album Salam arrived in September 2015, led by the single “Salam Alaikum” — an upbeat, plainly spoken song about peace and greeting one another that found an audience far beyond the UK, including in Malaysia and Indonesia, where he has since returned to perform. NPR profiled the eighteen-year-old that October, noting the song had passed three million YouTube views within weeks; the official video has since passed 140 million.

The album paired contemporary pop production with songs of devotion such as “Rasool’ Allah”, and featured Saif Adam, Shujat Ali Khan and Jae Deen. In 2017 the title song became a picture book, Salam Alaikum: A Message of Peace, published by Simon & Schuster. A live album, Harris J Live in Concert, followed in 2018.

Exploring

In the years that followed, Harris J explored mainstream pop and R&B, working with both major and independent labels and releasing the 2023 EP Phases.

He has since spoken openly about this period: in interviews around Revival he described reaching a point where he nearly stepped away from music altogether, and said that the songs he made outside faith-inspired music, however successful, did not feel like they had a soul.

Revival

An Umrah in 2021 and Ramadan in 2023 became turning points. “That particular Umrah changed me for sure,” he told Popbela in 2025. Conversations with Maher Zain and Awakening’s Masood Curtis convinced him there was still a place for him in faith-inspired music.

He returned to Awakening with “O Allah” in 2024, followed by “Hourriya (Freedom)” with Lowkey. In 2025 came “Qalbi Fil Madinah” with Maher Zain and then Revival, a six-song EP he has described as a second chance. That November he joined Maher Zain on tour across Indonesia, where the two performed “Qalbi Fil Madinah” live together for the first time.

In 2026 he released “Salawat” with Zack Knight and played a sold-out one-off show at Kings Place in London.

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Photography

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