Submission declined on 16 June 2026 by Avgeekamfot (talk). This draft's references do not show that the person meets Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion for people. The draft requires multiple published secondary sources that: provide significant coverage: discuss the person in detail, not brief mentions or interviews lacking independent analysis; are reliable: from reputable outlets with editorial oversight; are independent: not connected to the person, such as interviews, press releases, the subject's own website, or sponsored content. Please add references that meet all three of these criteria. If none exist, the subject is not yet suitable for Wikipedia. This draft appears to contain text generated by a large language model (such as ChatGPT). You cannot use LLMs to generate article content. LLM-generated pages with certain obvious signs of being machine generated may be deleted without notice. Instead, only summarize in your own words a range of independent, reliable, published sources that discuss the subject. See the advice page on large language models for more information. If you would like to continue working on the submission, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window. If you have not resolved the issues listed above, your draft will be declined again and potentially deleted. If you need extra help, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. Please do not remove reviewer comments or this notice until the submission is accepted. Where to get help If you need help editing or submitting your draft, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. These venues are only for help with editing and the submission process, not to get reviews. If you need feedback on your draft, or if the review is taking a lot of time, you can try asking for help on the talk page of a relevant WikiProject. Some WikiProjects are more active than others so a speedy reply is not guaranteed. How to improve a draft Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia – a basic overview on how to edit Wikipedia. Help:Wikitext – how to use the markup Help:Referencing for beginners – how to include references Wikipedia:Article development – how to develop your article Wikipedia:Writing better articles – how to improve your article Wikipedia:Verifiability – make sure your article includes reliable third-party sources You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article. Improving your odds of a speedy review To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags. Add tags to your draft Editor resources Easy tools: Citation bot (help) | Advanced: Fix bare URLs Declined by Avgeekamfot 2 months ago. Last edited by Avgeekamfot 2 months ago. Reviewer: Inform author. Resubmit Please note that if the issues are not fixed, the draft will be declined again.

• Comment: In accordance with Wikipedia's Conflict of interest guideline, I disclose that I have a conflict of interest regarding the subject of this article. Magicianofelsewhere (talk) 18:58, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Nikotine نيكوتين بيروت
Background information
Origin	Beirut, Lebanon
Genres	Arabian glam rock Mystical nomadic cabaret Multilingual pop
Occupations	Singer-songwriter Cabaret artist
Member of	Cabaret: The Dancing Djinn
Website	nikotine-music.com

Nikotine (also known as Nikotine Beirut; Arabic: نيكوتين بيروت) is a Lebanese-Canadian singer-songwriter and cabaret artist based between Toronto and Montréal, Canada. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Nikotine performs original multilingual music spanning genres she has described as "Arabian glam rock" and "mystical nomadic cabaret," blending Arabic and English lyrics with influences drawn from medieval Arab musical heritage, queer history, and diasporic identity.^[1]

Nikotine is best known as the writer, host, and live singer of CABARET: The Dancing Djinn, a two-person queer Arab drag and cabaret musical theatre piece she created with bellydancer Samara, which has toured venues across Canada and drawn critical attention for its reclamation of the medieval Arab third-gender tradition known as the Mukhannathun.^[2] As of 2026, she is at work on her debut studio album. All profits from performances of The Dancing Djinn are donated to displaced families in Beirut and to humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza.^[3]

Nikotine was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and later relocated to Canada, settling primarily between Toronto, Ontario, and Montréal, Quebec. She is fluent in Arabic, English, and French, all of which feature in her musical work.^[1] Her Lebanese heritage and the experience of diasporic displacement are central preoccupations of her artistic output.

The 2020 Beirut port explosion, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, has been a defining backdrop to Nikotine's creative life. All profits from performances of The Dancing Djinn are donated to displaced families in Beirut and to humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza.^[3]

Nikotine draws explicitly on the history of the Mukhannathun (Arabic: المخنثون) — trans-feminine or gender-nonconforming performers who occupied celebrated roles in medieval Andalusian and broader Arab court culture - as a historical lineage for her own queer, Arab artistic identity. Her 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, is cited as a turning point in the development of her stage persona and the concept behind The Dancing Djinn.^[2]

She characterises her musical genres as "Arabian glam rock" and "mystical nomadic cabaret," situating her work at the intersection of contemporary queer performance, Arab musical traditions, and Western cabaret and rock forms.^[1] Her live repertoire has included Arabic-language classical songs such as Lamma Bada Yatathanna and Li Beirut alongside English-language popular covers, performed in her distinctive drag persona.

Nikotine has cited a wide range of influences spanning both Arab and Western musical traditions. In the Arab world, her primary influences include Fairuz, Assala, Majida El Roumi, and Julia Boutros - Lebanese and Syrian vocalists whose careers span classical Arabic music, patriotic song, and dramatic pop. Her Western influences include Freddie Mercury, Prince, Sylvester, Nina Hagen, and Klaus Nomi, artists associated with theatrical performance, glam, and queer iconography.

Beyond music, Nikotine has cited the poetry of Rumi and Rainer Maria Rilke, as well as the writings of Carl Jung, as significant influences on her artistic and lyrical sensibility.

After developing an allergy to smoking, Nikotine decided to quit and chose took on her stage name simultaneously.

Nikotine has described her stage identity as rooted in reclaiming sensuality, queerness, and Arab femininity from the erasures wrought by colonialism, religion, and political repression. On the origins of her artistic persona she has said:

Seeing traces of their history reflected in the palace's art and architecture felt special.^[2]

CABARET: The Dancing Djinn originated from Nikotine's encounter with the history of the Mukhannathun and her subsequent meeting with Samara, a bellydancer and burlesque performer. The two first performed together informally at Woody's, a venue in Toronto, with a Shakira - Assala Nasri mashup combining Nikotine's live vocals and Samara's bellydance. The spontaneous set concluded with a standing ovation and audience tips, providing the initial impetus for a full production.^[2]

The show debuted in January 2025 at Kawalees in Montréal. Nikotine has described the collaboration as the foundation of a deep creative partnership:

We built this whole concept on what my strengths were as Nikotine and what Samara's strengths were as Samara. Now we've become soul sisters. We're inseparable.^[2]

The Dancing Djinn is a two-hour live production (with a twenty-minute intermission) billed as a Lebanese and queer musical theatre cabaret. The show is co-created and entirely self-produced by Nikotine and Samara, who handle music composition, choreography, costume design, and marketing independently.^[2]

The narrative follows Nikotine as a wanderer crossing a desert with a magic lamp. The lamp contains Samara — presented as the exiled djinn Queen of Queerabia — whose release triggers a journey through mythology, desire, and queer Arab history. The show has been described as "an anti-colonial Aladdin," fusing original live Arabic and English music, dramatic monologues, comedy, crowd participation, and Baladi dance (bellydance, jazz, and burlesque).^[3] The duo's live performances have attracted international attention, including coverage on Beirut.com for their Arabic-language reinterpretation of the Frankie Valli classic Can't Take My Eyes Off You, which the outlet described as giving the song "a completely new life" through their identity as Lebanese queer artists.^[4]

A signature theatrical device is the hiding of lamp keychains beneath audience seats, revealed at the finale as a symbolic invitation for each audience member to become a keeper of the show's story of queer liberation.^[2]

The duo have articulated the show's political dimension:

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.^[2]

Following its January 2025 debut at Kawalees (Montréal), the production toured to Café Cléopâtre (Montréal, August 2025), Lula Lounge (Toronto, September 2025), and Cabaret Lion d'Or (Montréal, February 2026), with a Pride Edition at Cabaret Lion d'Or scheduled for 4 August 2026.^[3] The show has sold out venues and attracted audiences travelling considerable distances; one audience member drove fourteen hours from Halifax to Montréal for the performance.^[2]

The show received press coverage in The Link, Concordia University's independent student newspaper, in a September 2025 feature by arts editor Safa Hachi, which described it as "a reclamation of erased queer Arab histories" and praised its fusion of "drag, bellydance and live music into an intimate mythology of memory, desire and defiance."^[2] The duo also received coverage from Beirut.com, which highlighted their Arabic reinterpretation of Can't Take My Eyes Off You as a viral performance making rounds on social media.^[4]

As of 2026, Nikotine is at work on her debut studio album, a multilingual original record spanning Arabic and English. No title, tracklist, or release date has been confirmed. Recordings for the album are reported to have taken place across Paris, Beirut, and Canada, with Nikotine working alongside both long-standing collaborators and new talent. In June 2026, Nikotine made an appearance at the Toronto Pride Festival, marking one of her highest-profile solo engagements to date.^[1]