Before she was rapping on festival stages, Neemz was a kid in a carpool in Medford, listening to her uncle's road-trip playlist of Oum Kalthoum and Hisham Abbas. Today the Palestinian American artist, born Tusneem Abuhasan, is a rapper, model, photographer and sneaker designer. In a February 2026 interview with Complex MENA, writer Danny Hajjar called her "a hustler's hustler quietly building her creative empire."

Growing Up Between Medford and Amman

Neemz told Complex MENA that she was born in the United States and that her family lived in Medford. (A Sound of Boston profile says she was born in Malden, and the Boston Globe described her in 2019 as born and raised in Medford.) Arabic classics on the drive to school were her first musical memory. "It was just very cultural and close to home," she said.

Her family later spent five years in Amman, Jordan, where she attended The International Academy of Amman. There, she said, she and her sisters discovered Jesse McCartney and 50 Cent on the radio and burned their own CDs. Her stage name grew out of family nicknames for Tusneem, and she said she insisted it end with a "Z."

From Photography to the Runway

Complex MENA reports that Neemz started with photography, then moved into modeling, working with KidSuper, Converse, Nike and Bodega, the Boston-born sneaker boutique. In 2019 the Boston Globe reported that she was the first hijabi to star in a fashion editorial for Bodega. Vanyaland later described her as one of Bodega's first hijabi models.

She told Complex MENA that after college, in 2018, she saw a KidSuper casting call on Instagram, sent a DM and was invited to walk his New York Fashion Week show. Complex MENA also notes that she has been featured in an exhibit at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and covered by Marie Claire.

With Converse, she became a Converse All Star. In 2022, Vanyaland reported, she designed a pair of platform Chuck Taylors for the brand's "Converse By You" campaign, using olive, mustard and brown tones that, in her words, represented olive trees and her mother's neighborhood. In the Instagram post Vanyaland quoted, she called herself a Palestinian American Muslim woman and described sharing traditional dishes cooked by her mom with the Converse team.

Music Made From Home

Neemz said she started making music in GarageBand, recording through her iPhone headphones over "type beats" she found on YouTube. Through people she met at KidSuper's studio, she connected with producer Jordan Beckford, who produced "Runnin' Thru The City." Complex MENA lists that song, "Damaged Feelings" and her more recent "YAPPIN" among her best-known tracks. She performed at Boston Calling in 2023. Vanyaland reports that she was also a two-time Boston Music Awards nominee that year and won Video of the Year.

She explained to Complex MENA why she stays independent and hands-on with videos, cover art and rollouts: "I'm the muse for myself, and I see what I want to build."

Designing a Shoe About Resilience

Sneakers led to a new career path. Neemz said a friend who was a New Balance footwear designer told her about Pensole, a sneaker design academy in Detroit. The application asked her to design a shoe from scratch, and she created a concept inspired by Palestinian resilience. "It was the most research I had ever done," she said. Her first application, for Nike, was turned down, but her New Balance x Pensole application was accepted in 2023. She said she completed the four-week program, earned an industry certification as a footwear designer and was later hired onto New Balance's Concept Design team.

Representing Her Community

In the Sound of Boston profile she said, "I'm really trying to open doors for people who are Palestinian," adding that her foundation is "representing people who are misrepresented constantly in the media." For Arab American families around Boston, her story of photography, fashion, music and sneakers shows what can grow from a Medford carpool soundtrack.

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