Mossaab Mohamed
Cover Me
E.M.E
The time when I wrote “Cover Me,” there was a lot of bad things happening, not just in my life, but in the world. I think us as a people, we often get lost to the fact that we do need each other. Everybody has to be able to lean on somebody.
“Cover Me” was being wrote through my lens in life at the time, graduating college, dropping my debut album “Foreigner,” and then not putting out a song and having this pause. I took time on myself trying to figure out what is the next chapter of my life?
I had a great 2025, I'm not gonna lie. I didn't write out my goals of what I wanted to do, but a lot of things happened in 2025 for me. I'm looking into 2026 like, where do I want to go? Where is this? Where is my next chapter? You're done with college. You just turned 23 and it feels like your life is just getting started.
So “Cover Me” was coming out the lens where I'm about to walk into this next journey in my life afraid, ambitious and just kind of like with an open mindset. I hope, I pray that, regardless of what I do, I pray that the Lord covers me as I walk through this next chapter in my life. I was writing through my lens, but I'm pretty sure anybody that listens to the song can feel it through their point of view and where they're at in life right now.
The song has roots in feelings I developed as a kid coming into America. As a six-year-old with your family, you don't know who to trust. My mom personally didn't trust anybody when we first came out here, so I didn't get the typical American experience. I didn't do sleepovers. I didn't really have, like, “Oh, this is my best friend,” and you come to my house and we could eat and ride our skateboards. So it's kind of like I had to learn certain things along the way.
I talk about being backstabbed on the song and that comes from a lot of personal things, a lot of family things. I'm really big on loyalty and the reason I'm really big on loyalty is just because you grow up and you're a kid, but you see stuff. You see things that's going on. And I don't think grown-ups really understand this, but it's like, as a kid, you see everything that's going on. But that kid is one day gonna grow up and realize what was happening in that moment.
So I feel like I've been, not just me, but my family, we’ve been backstabbed by people who hurt me when I was growing up. We’ve been backstabbed by a lot of family members and it's really hard for me to call people my family. Because family, to me, is not built off of blood. It's built off of loyalty. It's built off of dependence. It's built off of being able to depend on somebody. And I realized I couldn't do that with a lot of people. So it's just me, my mom, my sister and that's literally my family.
I have a dad, but he wasn't really there for me. He wasn't really around. You can't really build a relationship that you didn't already establish when your kid was younger. It's hard because, like I said, the kid grows older and they just start figuring out life for themselves.
I've been backstabbed a lot. There's a lot of messed up people in the world, and there's a lot of things that happen to you that you kind of question like, “Why would you do that to me?” Or, “Why would you do that to somebody that you supposedly love?” That's constantly the question that’s getting asked in your head, but you come to a place of mine where it's like, I don't even want to address it, but I need to say it to be at peace with it. I need to let it out some way to be at peace with it. And my only way was to put it in the song.​
The format of “Cover Me” is a prayer. I grew up going to church every Sunday. Waking up in the morning, my mom singing, her prayer channels on in the background. I always had that. I’m thankful for that consistency. We're going to church, consistency with waking up every Sunday in the morning, going to church, praying.
My mom always tells me to pray. “Pray for what you want. Your star will shine.” That's what my mom always tells me. She always tells me, “Your star will shine. Wait for your time. Pray to God. God's going to answer your prayers.” My mom's literally instilled that in me since I was a kid. So I had to put it in the music. I just had to.
And it's funny because people listen to that song, they think I'm a Christian artist, or something and I'm not. I'm just an Afrofusion, Afrobeat artist. But the song is definitely spiritual, so I know why a lot of people feel that way. I'm really just talking about my life and where I want to go, and I just hope that He is listening. He does see everything we go through. He watches your going out and your coming in. He created heaven and earth, and no matter what we do in this life, He's here to protect us. He's here to love us, even though we might sin. Acknowledging that and knowing that, it gives you the sense of comfort where it's like, I'm gonna go chase and do what You need me to do and what I need to do.
Because with God, you have to meet Him halfway. You can't just say, “I want to be great. I want to be a millionaire. I want to be the biggest artist in the world,” pray on it and okay, just go to sleep and hop on the game or something like that. You have to meet him halfway. You have to go put in the work. You have to talk to the people. You have to spend money. You have to be seen. And once He sees that you're putting in the work, He makes things come together.
God gives the hardest battles to the strongest soldiers, right? You have to be the soldier. You have to be the one that has to go get it, and once He sees that, He'll meet you wherever you are. That's who He is, and that's who I've learned. That's what I've learned, every time I put in the work, He meets me halfway. It might not be what you want right now. People be thinking about the end goal, like, “I need to be famous, I need to have the money.” But you still have to think about the ways He's blessing you. I want to be seen. I'm getting booked for show after show after show after show after show. Whether you're getting paid or not, you have to see the steps of the journey. Whatever your end goal is, whether it's I want to be able to drop music, or I want to be able to work on my fashion, or just be a better son, it's like you still have to meet Him halfway.
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And He will show you the way. He will take you step by step. He has a path for you. He's not just going to run you through the finish line. You're going to go through every trial and tribulation. You're going to go through different processes to build the character so when you get to where the end destination is, you're ready for everything that comes with it. And it took me a long time to realize that. But realizing that and having my mom’s guidance helps me keep in mind, I'm not where I want to be right now. But I know one day, like my mom always tells me, my star will shine. And when my star shines, I would think about every moment I've went through, because you have to appreciate the process. It is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to appreciate the journey, because it builds character to where you need to be.
It’s never going to be easy. Build that relationship with God or whoever you believe in. Talk to Him. Talk. Talk. People think “Oh, I have to pray, go to church for God to love me.” But it's like, no, you have to just build a relationship with Him, because He's always waiting on you. You have to want and accept the fact that you want Him in your life and you want to believe.
So that's what I wanted to put out in “Cover Me.” Go do what you need to do. Go get it. He will cover you, but you still have to meet Him halfway. And regardless of what you have going on, what you're going through in your life, hardships, problems, us as humans, us as people, us as children of God or whoever you believe in, whether that's Allah, whether that's God, whether that's a higher power, us as a whole, we need to be able to depend on one another, rely on one another, and be able to grow together. Because the world depends on it.
I’m only here because of my support system and the people who have been there for me. I battle a lot of trauma, things that happened to me in the past, and it's hard for me to really want to talk to people about it, especially just being a boy growing up without really a fatherly role model around you. It kind of hurts, you know? Some certain stuff you don't know how to do. I don't know how to tie tie. I never learned how to shave. This is all stuff that I had to teach myself. You go through trauma and see things you see in your house. It's not easy to come back from. I have a lot of wounds that I put band-aids on, but there's still wounds that's there. There's still scars that I continuously run from. And then you start questioning yourself, because, like I said before, as a kid coming in here from Nigeria, it's like, you don't know if you're too African. You're too African to be American. You learn the language, you try to fit in and then you’re too American to be African. And it's kind of like, I just want to be me. You're fighting an identity crisis.
At the beginning of “Cover Me,” I sing, “Normally, don't know who I am or who I used to be.” You're constantly growing. You're changing. Things around you are changing. Your interests is changing. Through the midst of all this, you’re still trying to figure out, who are you? Who is E.M.E? Who is Emmanuel? What are my morals? What do I stand by? Because if you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything. That's the point I was at in my life when I wrote “Cover Me,” turning 23, just graduated college. It's like, okay, I spent the last four years figuring out who I am in college, but now I'm about to be in the real world. Who do I want to be and who am I leaving here?
Two things that's helped me is being able to express myself through the music, and also being able to have a mom and a sister that really keeps me grounded. They constantly let me know where I'm from, constantly let me know about our culture and just experiencing it. I think definitely those have helped me really understand that I've grown to be this person who I am today. I am from Nigeria. I am of Nigerian soil, but I grew up in America. That has not changed where I'm originally from. And it's also like the experiences I went through by myself helped me be where I'm at right now.
If you're questioning who you are, understand that somebody is here to guide you. Somebody is listening to your problem. Somebody is listening and watching everything you're going through. But you need to keep going every step. Every step of the journey matters, from the lowest to the highest. And I had to figure that out myself. Because not everybody's gonna know who you are right now, but consistency outbeats talent every time. Consistency is what keeps you in the game long enough for you to be recognized. And that's where I'm at right now.
Going to 2026, I have this new record called “Go Hard or Go Home.” And that record is just also me talking through my lens again. I've been up all night praying for my own timing. This next song is talking about everything we have to do to get to where we need to be at the end of the day, whether we failed, whether we've lost, whether we've won.
Me, Mic and FL, we've took a lot of L’s, we've also learned a lot. We've learned this music industry, it's a game, man. We've learned a lot. But where I'm at right now, at the point I am in my career, 2026, my main goal is to do shows outside of Denver and give my sound to the world. But at the end of the day, regardless of what you're chasing, you can't spend time and dwell on failure. You can't spend time and dwell on what you're not doing right now. You have to be patient. You have to be consistent long enough for somebody to recognize who you are. At the end of the day, you're either gonna go hard or you're gonna go home.
I'm at the place right now where I have friends that appreciate me for who I am. I have homies, friends, we're all African and we grew up in America. So we all know how each other feels and where we come from. It took me a long time to find that, but I'm following where I want to be. They support me, they help me with the music, they listen. And that's all I ever wanted. So I think those people, along with my mom and my sister, definitely helped me understand my identity and who I am and who I want to be.
It took me the longest time to be confident in, I'm E.M.E the artist. I make music. This is my passion. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life, and this is where I'm at. Before I was able to say that, I used to be afraid to tell people, “Oh yeah, man, I make music.” You don't really know what you want to say because you don't want somebody to shut down your dream. But people rock with this version of me. I'm E.M.E. I am who I am, and I am who I say I am. So it took me a long time, but I’m here, and I'm here, and I'm here to stay.​
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