Mustafa

Mustafa Ahmed (born: ), better known professionally as Mustafa the Poet, is a Sudanese-Canadian poet and singer known for his music and work on several projects. He is a member of the collective Halal Gang.
==Personal life==
Ahmed was born on July 28, 1996, in Toronto, Ontario. He performed an original piece, "A Single Rose", at Nelson Mandela Park Public School. The piece got a lot of attention, earning him high praises at Toronto's Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in 2009. During this time, Ahmed was known for writing poems about poverty in Africa, and poverty in the Regent Park area. He had a rough upbringing in his hometown, located in Toronto's oldest housing projects, Regent Park. Despite his young age at the time, Ahmed was a witness of gun violence and street gangs.
==Career==
Ahmed first gained recognition in 2014 at the age of 18, by featuring on singer Lorraine Segato's single "Rize Time", a remix of her band's own song "Rise Up", in which he performs a spoken word poem on the prelude. He then went on to produce the spoken word poetry film Spectrum of Hope in 2014. It was a collaborative project between him and Thompson Egbo-Egbo. Ahmed gained national recognition for a poem which was shared by Drake on his Instagram account in January 2015 in which he tagged Ahmed. With the death of Muhammad Ali in 2016, Ahmed wrote a poem to "honor his hero". He performed the poem that came from that writing on Metro Morning, a CBC Radio One local morning program in Toronto.
In 2020, he released his debut single "Stay Alive". The single was dedicated to those he lost to gun violence and was known for capturing Regent's Park resiliency. The single featured numerous cameos from Toronto rappers including Halal Gang members Puffy L'z and Mo-G as well as Lil Berete. It was known for including lyrics about resilience, community, and the bleak realities of living on the fringes pair perfectly.
Ahmed released his debut album When Smoke Rises in 2021. That same year, numerous publications named him as an 'artist on the rise, including Complex, Pitchfork, i-D, and YouTube Music. His album won the 2022 Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year and was shortlisted for the 2021 Polaris Music Prize.
Ahmed was featured on Metro Boomin's 2022 album Heroes & Villains, on the track "Walk Em Down (Don't Kill Civilians)", alongside 21 Savage.
==Channel==
Ahmed created his channel on March 3, 2020, and he uploaded his first video on March 10, 2020. He has uploaded music videos and audio before going inactive.
==References==
Category:Music YouTubers
Category:Canadian YouTubers
Category:Sudanese YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2020