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Saudi Arabia

Hiba Tawaji has been turning heads since she debuted her stage career in 2008 as the protagonist in the musical The Return of the Phoenix. Written by the late Mansour Rahbani and composed and directed by his sons, Oussama and Marwan, the musical was the latest addition to the Rahbani Brothers’ established legacy in musical theater. Hiba cemented her position as a pillar of this legacy, starring in the last four musicals made by the Rahbanis.
In parallel with her theatrical debut, she launched her solo career in 2011 with the release of her first album La Bidayi Wala Nihayi (Neither the Beginning Nor the End), which was followed over the years by three other albums: Ya Habibi (My Darling) in 2014, Hiba Tawaji 30 in 2017, and her most recent Levanting pop album Bad Sneen (After Years) in 2023. Armed with a fierce passion for her work throughout this journey, Hiba Tawaji found herself celebrating one milestone after another, not least of which was her impressive participation in the French version of The Voice in 2015. Meanwhile in 2017, she made history as the first female singer to perform on a public stage in Saudi Arabia, after the announcement of the Kingdom’s 2030 Vision in 2016. Another milestone was achieved in 2019, when Hiba was selected by Disney to dub Princess Jasmine’s speaking and singing voice in the French version of the blockbuster Aladdin. The film’s success in topping the French box office for several weeks propelled Hiba beyond her established roots in the Lebanese music scene, helping her make a significant mark on the global market. 

Billboard Arabia caught up with Hiba Tawaji after her first concert at Paris’ legendary L’Olympia theater in May, and she told us about the profound and memorable moments that she experienced during the concert, revisiting the milestones of her career that eventually brought her to this world-renowned stage. One such moment during her concert at L’Olympia was sharing the stage with her husband, trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, who has been a great support for her throughout her musical career, as well as knowing that her son was in the audience. This strong connection to her family and their continuous support made that night one of the most meaningful and impactful of her career, which Hiba believes was paved with the support of her partners and her personal vision of art, experience and passion.

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In her interview, Hiba speaks at length about her long professional partnership with Oussama Rahbani and its significant role in the development of her musical and theatrical career, providing her with a strong foundation that allowed her to unleash her creativity and excellence over the past 17 years. Rahbani, who directed the L’Olympia concert, played an instrumental role in bringing Hiba to where she is today.

Hiba recounts how their special partnership began, saying: “I met Oussama in my first year of university studies in acting and directing in Beirut. A friend of mine was a dancer in the Arabesque troupe, which performs the choreography in most of the musicals that Oussama Rahbani produced and wrote, and she knew that I have a passion for music and a lifelong dream to sing. She also knew how much I admired Oussama and everything he does, so she arranged for me to audition for him. That’s how it all started, and to this day our partnership continues. We are hand in hand on this journey, sharing the same vision, dreams and ambitions. We share our commitment to what we do, our loyalty, and of course we have great communication, because that’s the key to a long-running professional relationship like ours, where good communication and the space to express yourself are crucial. Throughout all these years – 16 or 17 years now – Oussama has been a huge support, and he keeps pushing me to challenge myself and go further.”

With all these years comes great experience, but Hiba never lost her passion. Despite her numerous achievements, her focused mindset and motivation are always pushing her toward bigger and better things on the horizon. “Of course, with experience, you are more capable to act better in certain circumstances and to know yourself better – where you stand, who you are,” she says. “You truly understand your capabilities, you become more mature in your choices and decisions, in the way you express a feeling or speak your mind without fear, in the way you express yourself, really. Experience is definitely key in our field of work, but the one thing we must not lose sight of is the spontaneity, the passion that drives us. I still have this passion, and if anything, it keeps growing. I’ve never felt that because of my experience, my art or work has become routine. On the contrary, I believe an artist’s passion grows with experience, dreams go further, and the efforts and responsibilities increase because you start asking yourself: after all I’ve done, what better things can I do now? I always challenge myself so I can reach further.”

Yet the road to success needs more than a focused and positive mindset. Hiba believes a positive and supportive entourage is key to an artist’s success. “I think artists alone cannot do everything. It is very important to be surrounded by the right people who support you and care about you and your image, people who give you good advice and know when to give advice. Not everything is always perfect or good.” She added: “I always try to be surrounded by people who truly love me and whom I love, whom I’ve known for years, because I like to maintain relationships on the long term. I like to form connections that last. This is how you attract positive energy; when you are spontaneous and natural and your relationship with art and people isn’t just for personal gain.”

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–This story was written for Billboard Arabia by Omar Bakbouk

Billboard Arabia caught Nassif Zeytoun at a pivotal moment in his life. The singer has been in the spotlight across the Arab world since announcing his marriage to acclaimed actress Daniella Rahme on July 1. Alongside this significant personal milestone, Zeytoun is also experiencing a major professional shift with the tremendous success of his hit duet with Rahma Riad and a slew of upcoming projects, all of which he shared in this exclusive interview with Billboard Arabia. 
We met Nassif in the brief window between his wedding and honeymoon. He and Daniella had kept their love story a secret for five years, away from the inquiring eyes of the press and fans. The news of their wedding only began to spread in the days leading up to their intimate ceremony in Jbeil, Lebanon, attended only by close family. Eventually, Nassif and Daniella shared their wedding pictures on social media, much to the delight of their fans across the Arab world. But for Nassif, his private life has always remained his own, while his work life is open to the public. “My personal opinion, and I don’t impose this on others, matters of the home are personal, whereas work matters are up for discussion,” says Nassif. Many of Nassif’s fans over the years were eager to learn more about his romantic relationship, particularly as a result of his penchant for love songs, including “Bel Ahlam” (In Dreams), which has found an eight-week placement on Billboard Arabia’s Hot 100.

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Early on in his career, Nassif captured the hearts of the Arab public by winning season 7 of Star Academy, an Arabic reality television show, with his self-contained vocal quality, performability, and a notable level of professionalism he brought to the program. Even in those early days, Nassif made a significant impact on the Arabic music scene, sharing the stage with the legendary, late Wadiah Al Safi, who praised Nassif’s talent and predicted a bright future for him. 

From that point on, Nassif’s ascent in the world of Levantine pop was rapid and remarkable. He consistently delivered hit after hit, each song showcasing his unique musical identity and becoming fan favorites. His breakthrough song, “Mich Aam Tezbat Maii” (It’s Not Working), released in 2014, has gone on to receive upward of 209 million views on YouTube, laying the perfect foundation for his debut album in 2013, Ya Samt(Silence), to flourish. In 2016, Toul Al Yom (All Day), marked the release of his follow-up album, with all 13 tracks becoming a setlist of summer anthems across the Arab world, and particularly the Levant.

Nassif Zeytoun for Billboard Arabia

This success was followed by several more acclaimed albums, including Bel Ahlam, with its title song continuing to hold strong in Billboard Arabia’s Hot 100. And with his songs reverberating across the Arab world, Nassif has become a highly demanded performer from reputable festivals such as Tunis’ Carthage International Festival, to concerts in Riyadh and Dubai, while making his way to international stages in Berlin and Sweden.

Nassif’s latest hit was his duet with his close friend Rahma Riad, who was his fellow contestant in Star Academy. Their friendship flourished over the years, culminating in April with the duet “Ma Fi Leil” (There Is No Night), which landed the No. 1 slot on Billboard Arabia’s Hot 100 the week it was released. Commenting on the duet, Nassif says: “Throughout my entire music career, everything has always been planned. But frankly, the one thing that was not planned was the duet with Rahma. Rahma and I started together and evolved together. It just so happened that we were in the same place, under the same management company. The stars were aligned, to be honest. I was offered a good song, and I suggested doing it with her. She liked it, and that’s how the song was made.”

Within hours of its release, “Ma Fi Leil” became one of the most-streamed songs in the Arab world. After the song landed on Billboard Arabia’s Hot 100 chart, it remained there for 12 consecutive weeks as of the time of writing.

Building on his music career, Nassif has recently launched his own production company called T-Start, where he explains the vision for this company: “I have an aspiration, not a fully defined vision. I have a personal aspiration for this company to produce my personal songs and the songs of several individuals who deserve to be in the music scene. I assure you that all the songs the company produces will be of the highest level, whether in terms of vocals, lyrics, melody, or execution.” He adds: “I’m currently producing my own songs. We worked on my first production with Rahma outside the company with the duet ‘Ma Fi Leil,’ and recently, a young woman with a very beautiful voice joined us. Her name is Luna Karam, and hopefully, in the coming days, she will release a song produced by T-Start. I have high hopes for her.”

Regarding his upcoming releases, Nassif shares insights: “I will hopefully release several songs soon…. I am now filming a new duet at the moment. I hope people will like it, the way it’s presented and the combination between me and the other artist. It’s a new idea, a new method, and I hope people will like it.”

As Nassif Zeytoun embarks on this new chapter in both his personal and professional life, it’s clear that his journey is far from over. With his marriage to Daniella Rahme and the immense success of his recent projects, Nassif continues to capture the hearts of fans across the Arab world. His dedication to his craft, coupled with his vision for his production company T-Start, promises an exciting future filled with innovative music, new collaborations, and contributions towards building the next phase of Arabic stars.

Nassif Zeytoun for Billboard Arabia

Lara Zankoul

–Written by Dima Hijazi for Billboard Arabia

A billboard along the four-lane highway that runs from King Khalid International Airport across the desert into Riyadh features the smiling faces of the Kingdom’s founder, King Abdulaziz and its current ruler King Salman, as well as the stoic visage of a third, Muhammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, colloquially known as MBS. “Our real wealth,” the sign reads in Arabic, as well as English, “is in the ambition of our people.”
A second billboard advertises the event I’m here to see and features the images of another three men who could, in their own way, be important to the future of the rapidly changing country: Marshmello, David Guetta and DJ Khaled. They are among the hundreds of artists who in 2022 flew in from around the world to perform at Riyadh’s third annual Soundstorm, a dance-music-focused mega-festival that drew more than 150,000 people a day, including myself, to a site the size of Coachella.

This year, the festival is drawing more superstars to the region, with Eminem, U.K. rock legends Muse, Jared Leto’s band Thirty Seconds to Mars and dance titans Richie Hawtin and Marco Carola set to headline Soundstorm 2024 this December 12-14. Many more acts will be announced in the coming weeks, with this fifth edition of the festival marking the first time all of these phase one artists, outside Carola, will perform in the country.

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Another act that made its Saudi Arabia debut at Soundstorm is Metallica. At the 2023 festival this past December, flames shot from the festival’s massive mainstage — dubbed “Big Beast” — into the cold desert air as the band’s singer James Hetfield demanded “Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire!” while the crowd roared. Like the country’s electronic scene, the Saudi Arabian metal community once existed entirely underground, with secret shows happening at empty highway rest stations. In this new era of Saudi history,  Soundstorm drew one of the genre’s most popular bands of all time to Riyadh. In the crowd, fans made devil horns with their hands and thrust them into the night sky as Hetfield yelled “Burn Riyadh, burn!”

This past December, Soundstorm — its scale matched only by longstanding dance festivals like Tomorrowland and EDC Las Vegas — also featured headliners including Calvin Harris, Will Smith, 50 Cent, Swedish House Mafia, David Guetta, H.E.R., Travis Scott and J Balvin, and followed an annual industry conference, XP Music Futures, that featured a mix of global and local music executives discussing AI, emerging artists, climate action and more.

This past May, the festival’s parent company, MDLBEAST, kicked off a series of day-long workshops for groups of roughly 30 people from the local music scenes in Kuwait, Tunisia, Oman and Saudi (last year they also hosted workshops featuring a music production course by Afrojackand a primer on artist management) and they’re gearing up for the next XP conference ahead of this December’s festival.

MDLBEAST, which is leading the charge on music-related endeavors in Saudi, also operate a members-only club in Riyadh similar to the Soho House — Beast House, which also houses a recording studio — and a Riyadh nightclub, Attaché. Saudi’s first opera house is currently under construction nearby, with an arena and art museum also forthcoming.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Johnny Greig/Getty Images

British DJ and event producer Megatronic, whose Femme Fest event hosts shows by female-identifying artists and has been at the conference since its first year, says the event “is going to grow and be an important part of the fabric for the Gulf Region in terms of putting music out to the rest of the world.” She says international music industry figures have been moving to Saudi Arabia from Dubai — where she also lived for six years — because “Saudi is fresh; it’s vibrant compared to Dubai… in 10 years it might squash Dubai.” It’s also possible that with war affecting Israel’s position as the Middle East’s leading dance music destination, Saudi Arabia could rise up in its place.

This was all inconceivable less than a decade ago, when playing music in public was punishable by the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Activities like dancing, public hugging and gender mixing were also prohibited, until bin Salman stripped the religious police of much of their authority when he rose to power around 2016 and launched his national development project known as “Vision 2030.”

As part of that plan, Saudi Arabia has been working to broaden its economy from oil dependency — the state-run ARAMCO posted $121 billion in profit in 2023 — to encompass businesses like sports, technology, tourism and media and culture. That includes getting into the music business, which the country is doing the way it does everything: Fast, and on a grand scale, with no expense spared.

In 2018, Saudi’s General Entertainment Authority announced plans to invest $64 billion — more than double the value of the entire global music industry in 2023, according to the 2024 IFPI Global Report — into entertainment over the next decade. In 2020, the country formally launched the Saudi Music Commission, with British music trade association executive Paul Pacifico joining as CEO in January 2023.

The hope is that Saudi Arabia will develop a music business that can generate jobs, turn regional artists into stars, help the country present a more modern face to the world and unlock the Middle East as music’s next big growth market.

“Over the next few years, it’s going to be all about building the structures that allow people to express themselves creatively,” Pacifico said at a November panel about the Saudi music business at LA3C, an event in Los Angeles run by Billboard parent company PMC. “And building platforms that will enable Saudi artists to tell their stories in a way that will be heard around the world.”

Music execs from companies across the business have flown to Saudi to assess the opportunity. In June, Saudi media company SRMG partnered with Billboard to launch Billboard Arabia and in December debuted its website and two global charts: The Billboard Arabia Hot 100 and the Billboard Arabia Artist 100, showcasing the most popular talent in the Middle East and North Africa regions.

The 2024 IFPI Global Report found that total MENA revenues rose by 14.4% in 2023, following a 26.8% jump in 2022 that marked the world’s third-highest growth rate. According to the IFPI, streaming revenues accounted for 98.4% of the region’s market in the last year. While Saudi Arabia does not yet have its own collecting society, MDLBEAST Publishing was announced in June to support artists across the MENA region, partnering with U.K.-based publisher Sentric to provide global support with admin services like royalty collection.

Fans attend the perfomance of Dish-Dash DJ music artists during the Soundstorm 2022 music festival, organized by MDLBEAST, in Banban on the outskirts of the Saudi capital Riyadh on December 1, 2022.

Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images

Pulling a traditional society into the 22nd century gives the country elements of the surreal. The image of the three royals from the highway billboard stares out from all over Riyadh, from banners on the sides of buildings to the Starbucks kiosk in my hotel lobby. In the room, an arrow on the ceiling points to Mecca — a common symbol at hotels across the Arab world to give Muslim visitors direction for prayer — and a live feed from the Great Mosque there plays 24 hours a day on the hotel TV. Other channels offer news, Middle Eastern soap operas and a falconry tournament. A U.K. woman here to work on the festival tells me that she, but not her male colleague, was escorted out of the hotel gym by staff — though hotels here are free to determine their own policies.

During my weekend at the rave, I’ll see a woman in a hijab dance to hip-hop and a tent where attendees observe the call to prayer while the music stops. I’ll be offered party drugs in a country where even alcohol is illegal and hear Fat Joe onstage demanding “what’s love got to do with a little ménage?” in a place where I’ve been advised to keep my ankles and elbows covered.

“This is all a huge change socially,” says Courtney Freer, visiting assistant professor of Middle Eastern studies at Emory University. Saudi women have only been able to drive since 2018. Over the last decade, the Saudi royal family has eased and in some cases eliminated other restrictions on women, including the requirement to wear a hijab, although many still do, often for their own cultural and religious reasons. Women can also now travel outside the country without a male guardian. Human Rights Watch senior women’s rights researcher Rothna Begum says that for some women, particularly the middle class, these changes are “significant,” even in some cases “life changing.”

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia formally opened to non-religious tourists in 2019, and it now takes only about 10 minutes to apply for a visa online. This past spring, the Saudi Tourism Authority web site FAQ was updated to declare that “Everyone is welcome to visit Saudi” in response to the question “Are LGBT members welcome to visit?” (This answer also asks that “they follow and respect our culture, traditions and laws as you would when visiting any other country in the world,” although it doesn’t specify them.) Other questions include “Is Saudi Arabia safe?” (“very”), “Is alcohol available in Saudi Arabia?” (“no”) and “Is it possible for women to wear swimsuits in public?” (“On public beaches, visitors are expected to wear modest clothing.”)

Partying with tens of thousands of strangers at a massive rave about 40 minutes outside of Riyadh is, apparently, perfectly fine.

But despite the new freedoms, there are still constraints. Free speech is not protected, and while the country has no written laws on sexual orientation, judges often use Islamic law to punish homosexual activity and sex outside marriage, and even advocating for gay rights online can be a punishable offense, according to Human Rights Watch LGBT Rights Program Senior Researcher Rasha Younes. In March 2022, the government passed a Personal Status Law that gave women certain rights but also requires that they get the approval of a male guardian in order to get married. This law also says that wives must “obey in righteousness” and that a husband can withhold financial support if his wife “refuses herself” without “a legitimate reason.”

In the historically progressive electronic music scene, a world pioneered by Black and gay people, the Saudi-funded Soundstorm is thus “very polarizing in our community,” says Silvia Montello, who was CEO of the Association for Electronic Music (AFEM) when we spoke.

“Beyond What You Think You Know”

To some critics, Soundstorm is a glitzy distraction from the Saudi government’s human rights violations. Women, LGBTQ people, migrant workers and journalists have faced repression from the same government that’s helping fund the country’s forays into music. In 2018, journalist Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul; in 2021, the Biden administration released a report saying bin Salman approved the killing of Khashoggi, although MBS has denied this. This past August, a retired teacher was sentenced to death for tweets criticizing the government, and in January a Saudi women’s rights activist was sentenced to 11 years in prison for charges including “indecent” clothing and promoting women’s rights on social media.

But some festival participants believe that music and events can drive social change and hope their participation will fuel more progress. “Some of my first shows in Saudi touched me deep,” David Guetta said during his 2022 XP keynote. “I’m sure everyone here can feel it. We’re witnessing a moment in history.”

“Ten or 20 years from now, there’s going to be books written about how Saudi changed,” says a non-Saudi music industry executive who’s worked with MDLBEAST. “If we all play our cards right, electronic music will be a chapter in that book. Don’t we all want that?”

People attend the MDLBEAST Soundstorm 2022 music festival in Banban on the northern outskirts of Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on December 1, 2022.

Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images

Social progress is part of the mission for MDLBEAST, the roughly 100-person organization that produces Soundstorm and several other festivals and events around the Gulf with a combination of government and private funding. Though it operates in partnership with various Saudi government divisions, the country’s politics “have nothing to do with us as an organization,” says its chief creative officer Ahmad Alammary, who goes by his DJ name, Baloo.

Raised in Riyadh, Alammary grew up listening to music — house, disco, new wave — with his family and started DJing in 1997 while attending American University in Washington D.C., once receiving a call from the Saudi consulate telling him to stop playing at clubs if he wanted to keep his scholarship.

Nonetheless, he returned to Riyadh in 2002 with eight boxes of vinyl and began DJing illegal underground parties where, he says, “The people, the ‘extracurriculars,’ everything looked, felt and sounded like any other party I would attend around the world.” When an event Alammary was scheduled to play was raided in 2004, he moved to Dubai, scored a residency at a club in Bahrain, then moved to New York City and earned his Masters from Pratt Institute’s Design Management program.

When he returned home again in 2013, Alammary found “a different society — art exhibitions, film screenings, gatherings with mixed crowds.” In 2019, he helped form MDLBEAST with the government’s blessing, booking the first Soundstorm with local artists, plus dance music titans like Guetta, Steve Aoki, Tiësto and Afrojack. More than one member of the MDLBEAST team compares this first festival to the fall of the Berlin Wall. “Every Saudi DJ got off the decks in complete shambles, tearful, in disbelief,” Alammary recalls.

Alammary says most fans who were interested in this first Soundstorm didn’t even believe it would happen — “they were like, ‘bulls–t,’” he remembers — with the crowd only swelling on the second day when locals realized it was real and began arriving by the carload.  

Now, with a staff that’s 50% women, the festival promoter seeks to become “one of the top brands known for gender diversity” with equitable lineups and “minority inclusion across our experiences,” according to an internal strategy document provided to Billboard, while it aims to “own the music industry in the Middle East” by increasing “the GDP of MENA [the Middle East and North Africa] Music Biz,” “promote Saudi as a global music destination,” “export cultural IP” and “inspire and promote progressive culture.”

“The truth is, though, we have to work harder because of where we’re from,” the document reads. “Beyond the money. Beyond the stereotypes. Beyond what you think you know.”

At The Festival

While female dancers in red, skintight latex bodysuits writhe around 50 Cent during a performance of “Drop It Like It’s Hot” on stage at Soundstorm this past December, festival attendees, all 16 and older, wear traditional robes or abayas, streetwear or jeans. Many women wear surgical masks to ensure they won’t be recognized in photographs. Ticket prices start at SAR 169, or about $45. A private suite with its own concierge goes for SAR 80,000, or about $21,000. Fans with premium access never even need touch the ground — a miles-long network of 15-foot-high walkways connect viewing areas at the event’s seven stages. On one stretch, a muscular man with army fatigues and a gun holster escorts a group of elegantly dressed women to the “VIB” — short for “very important beast” — area.

Each evening around seven, the music stops for about 15 minutes during the call to prayer, during which a small percentage of the crowd enters a designated tent to observe. Alcohol is illegal in Saudi, so the drink stands sell bottled soft drinks. Even so, a festival employee tells me backstage that “everyone here is shitfaced.” (I’m told that alcohol is brought in from Bahrain.) In the crowd a man offers me “pills to party.” I decline. A Soundstorm spokesperson says the festival has a zero-tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol and security removes violators.

Attendees dance during the MDLBEAST Soundstorm 2022 music festival in Banban on the northern outskirts of Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on December 1, 2022.

Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images

The first year of Soundstorm was hard to book, as many artists were reluctant to play in the country, says MDLBEAST Strategy Director Nada Alhelabi. She says assembling the lineup “gets easier every year.” The industry executive who’s worked with MDLBEAST says that while artists earned two or three times their normal fee at the first festival, rates have since come down to standard (mid-to-high six figures for top-tier acts). As at most dance-focused festivals, the 2022 and 2023 Soundstorm lineups skew heavily male, although there are performances from women including Peggy Gou, Nervo, La Fleur, Anne-Marie, Carlita, Nora En Pure, and many Middle Eastern artists including Cosmicat, who grew up in the coastal city of Jeddah and was studying to be a dentist before a DJ career became possible.

Saudi’s General Authority of Statistics reports that 67% of the population is younger than 35, data cited repeatedly by artists and executives who are here to assess the market. Backstage before his Soundstorm 2022 set, Dutch producer Hardwell tells me that Saudi “feels to me how it did when I started playing in the States around 2010 when the whole EDM thing blew up.”

The country’s music investments still seem to exist outside the realm of supply and demand, however. Soundstorm is not yet profitable, although Alammary predicts it will break even in the next few years.

The most striking difference between Soundstorm and other festivals is that in 2022 and years prior, attendees were overwhelmingly male. In the 2022 crowd, I count roughly one woman for every 20 men. Sexual harassment has been an issue at Soundstorm since its 2019 debut, and every year, several female attendees post on social media about being harassed, even groped. Co-ed events are still relatively new, and organizers “are doing everything they can to make it safe for women,” says the industry executive who’s worked with MDLBEAST. “They’re not sweeping it under the carpet.”

In both 2022 and 2023, LED signs and bathroom-stall posters promote Respect & Reset, MDLBEAST’S anti-harassment program, which brings in 250 staffers to offer support in the crowd at four tents, where anyone who has been harassed can report the incident and get support. More established events around the world devote fewer resources to the issue, says Respect & Reset Co-Director Judy Bec, who operates similar anti-harassment programs at festivals in her native U.K.

People attend the MDLBEAST Soundstorm 2022 music festival in Banban on the northern outskirts of Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on December 1, 2022.

Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images

On Saturday night during Swedish House Mafia’s 2022 set, I’m groped from behind on two separate occasions by men who stick their hands between my thighs and grab. (I don’t report either incident, since both men disappear into the crowd.) A male friend does his best to protect me and a female companion, but being in the crowd is hectic until a group of courteous Saudi men create a wall around us. I don’t see any similar incidents in the premium viewing areas, where the crowd is older and more gender balanced. A female journalist who traveled from Europe for Soundstorm in 2022 and 2023 says that while the festival was generally less crowded in 2023, GA attendees at this most recent event were more gender balanced, a shift, this journalist says, that made the atmosphere less threatening and more like other festivals around the world.

On the final night of Soundstorm 2022, I see two men embracing on a patch of fake grass in the general admission area. Alammary, the MDLBEAST creative director, remembers asking a DJ he wanted to perform at Soundstorm questioning the offer because of the country’s hostility toward gay rights. “I told him, ‘I understand and respect that, but I need you to also understand that everyone is on the dance floor,’” Alammary remembers. “Everyone is behind the decks. We don’t care about anybody’s background or orientation.”

There’s evidence that he’s right. A 2021 U.S. State Department report on human rights in Saudi Arabia ends with a single sentence: “Observers at the December MDLBeast [sic] Soundstorm music festival reported that it included the public display of LGBTQI+ culture.”

“They’re Taking The Music Business Very Seriously”

Amy Thomson, Swedish House Mafia’s former manager who now runs her own rights management platform, travelled to XP 2022 to speak on a panel because she says “it was important for me to come see if they’re taking it seriously…and clearly, they’re taking the music business very seriously.” Though she says she nearly canceled the trip three times, she ultimately chose to attend, as “you can’t just run around the world just throwing your opinion without education.”

Mirik Milan, the former night mayor of Amsterdam and founder of the nightlife consultancy VibeLab, who has come to XP since its first year, says he’s seen “a cultural renaissance has taken place in the last couple of years,” but “we should also not be naïve. Music and nightlife have the power to change people’s lives, but they won’t inflict a power change in Saudi or anywhere in the world.” To him, the point is the people of Saudi experiencing the joy of dance music.

On the final night of Soundstorm 2022, three Saudi women in their early 30s, all of whom speak English, sit at a picnic table and talk about life before bin Salman’s reforms.

Until a decade ago, they say, the most exciting form of legal entertainment was a restaurant with dancing waiters. The reforms have made dating easier, they say, since they no longer have to chaperone one another on secret visits to mens’ houses. “We’d be nervous, like ‘don’t drink anything; be careful,’” says one. “Now you can just go to a coffee shop.” Even now, though, they say the lives of Saudi women depend significantly on the permissiveness of their fathers. “And if it’s not your dad, it’s your siblings, or your uncles, or your cousins,” says another. “Someone in the family is going to stand up and say ‘no.’”

Dressed in jeans and T-shirts, they say they’re happy that the women here in hijabs can experience the festival, because, the first one says, “It’s getting them out of their comfort zone.” The second says she was excited when tourists started coming, since “a lot of the terrorist [activity] created a big cloud on us that really doesn’t show who we are as people.”

That’s one reason they appreciate the DJs and artists who do make the trip. A third woman says she especially loves Guetta for coming here to play when the country first opened for foreign entertainment.

But she loves bin Salman even more, for making all of this possible.

“I am,” she says, “his biggest fan.”

About this reporting: Billboard assumed all costs related to travel to and from Saudi Arabia, including hotel accommodations. MDLBEAST helped arrange a travel visa. While in Saudi Arabia, the writer was part of a press entourage for which the festival provided transportation to and from XP and Soundstorm, along with sightseeing. 

Billboard’s parent company, PMC, received a minority investment from SRMG, a publicly traded media company based in Saudi Arabia and Dubai, in early 2018.

HipHopWired Featured Video

Source: FADEL SENNA / Getty
The intense heat that has struck Saudi Arabia during the holy pilgrimage period for Muslims has reportedly claimed over 1,000 lives.
On Thursday (June 20), reports from various sources declared that 1,081 people have died during the hajj, or annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. The high heat – which topped out at 51.8 degrees Celsius or 125 degrees Fahrenheit at the Grand Mosque in Mecca – experienced in the Middle Eastern nation was cited as the primary reason for the deaths, with the total coming from reports compiled by various countries that the pilgrims had come from within the past few days.

According to reports, 1.8 million made the pilgrimage this year, with 1.6 million people visiting from foreign countries. The disclosure comes days after Saudi officials declared that this year’s season was a “success.” Health Minister Fahd al-Jalajel expressed “particular satisfaction with the fact that there were no outbreaks or other public health threats despite the significant number of pilgrims and the challenges posed by high temperatures.”
Jordan’s official news agency stated on Wednesday (June 19), that there were burial permits issued for 41 pilgrims from the country. Tunisia’s Foreign Ministry said the day before that at least 35 citizens of that country had perished. Egyptians accounted for the largest number of casualties from the group with 658 reported deceased, according to one diplomatic source. It is believed 630 of them were unregistered with the Saudi authorities, which prevented them from accessing the numerous air-conditioned spaces in the city of Mecca and along the pilgrimage route to cool down.
They have set up an “operations room” to address calls from distressed relatives and have personnel in Mecca to assist with bringing the dead back to Egypt. India, Russia, Pakistan and Senegal have also reported some of their citizens dying on this season’s hajj. The hajj is a requirement of every Muslim if they are able, although in recent years the rising heat has posed difficulties for older pilgrims with health issues like high blood pressure. Climate change has been a concern as the lunar calendar that Islam follows has placed the time for the pilgrimage during the hottest times of the year. Saudi Arabia has worked to provide advanced cooling systems in light of that for all undertaking the hajj.

Amid the offerings at the LA3C festival that took place in downtown L.A. this past weekend (Nov. 11-12), a presentation from the Saudi Arabia Music Commission put forth a broad view of the music industry currently being developed in the country.

Hosted by VIBE editor-in-chief Datwon Thomas, panelists included Paul Pacifico, CEO of the Saudi Music Commission; Ahmad Alammary, chief creative officer for the Saudi electronic music festival Soundstorm; Gigi Arabia, the founder/CEO of Saudi heavy metal organization Heavy Arabia; Mexican-American songwriter, producer and academic Fernando Garibay, who has worked in the Kingdom; and Saudi singer-songwriter Tamtam.

Saudi Arabia has seen significant social changes in the last decade, as the government has eased restrictions around formerly prohibited activities like playing music in public and co-ed gatherings. These new freedoms have helped lay the groundwork for the formation of a music industry, with the bulk of the panel discussion focused on how this industry is currently being built from scratch.

“We have huge pent-up supply of creativity and music,” said Pacifico, a Brit who joined the Music Commission as CEO in January 2023. “We have huge pent-up demand among audiences that have grown up wanting to go to festivals, concerts, events, to listen to music and enjoy themselves.”

“But we lack enablers,” Pacifico continued. “So over the next one year, three years, five years, it’s going to be all about building the structures that connect those dots that allow people to express themselves creatively and to build platforms that will enable Saudi artists to tell their stories in a way that will be heard around the world.”

“A lot of people working in the [global music] industry ask how we can fix our industry, or how we can rethink our industry,” added Garibay, “but I don’t think we’ve ever had in the history over the past 100 years a chance to think about, ‘How would you start over? How would you start from a new perspective?’”

The discussion emphasized that while Saudi Arabia does not yet have venues, a collecting society and other essential infrastructure, this clean canvas is allowing key players to, Alammary said, “shape it the way we want to learn from the lessons around the world and actually serve artists.”

Pacifico cited the major opportunities for artists in Saudi Arabia with respect to the country’s demographics, saying that “70% of the people are under 35 years old, and the country has 98% Internet penetration. So you have a young, connected, dynamic and unbelievably energized population.”

The panelists agreed that this audience and the emerging industry combined are creating huge opportunities for Saudi artists, as formerly underground scenes are coalesced and, as Alammary said, “unveiled.” These formerly underground scenes include those around genres like electronic music, the focus of the Saudi mega-festival Soundstorm that launched in 2019, along with hip-hop, heavy metal and more.

“All of the events took place in super unconventional places,” Arabia said of the Saudi metal scene before music-related restrictions were lifted. “We have something in Saudi called rest houses, little houses in the middle of nowhere for people to rest in if they’re going on a road trip, where events took place.”

“We’re still growing it event by event,” Arabia added in regard to the country’s current aboveground metal scene. “With the help of the Music Commission and its leadership, now we have been able to go and represent it in the genre globally.” She foresees Saudi Arabia becoming a “hotspot for metal heads” in a fashion similar to the Nordic region.

The Music Commission exists under the Saudi Ministry of Culture, a government entity focused on expanding the country’s entertainment sector through endeavors into music, sports, film and more. These entities exist as part of Vision 2030, the Saudi government’s plan, it says, to diversify the country’s economy, society and culture. (The LA3C panel did not touch on the challenges of building an industry amid the still-existing restrictions of the Saudi government, which does not protect freedom of speech and which, despite some recent advancements, still imposes myriad restrictions on women.)

“There’s an incomplete picture. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing,” Pacifico said of the country’s current industry, “But we see record labels coming up, we see management companies growing. The most amazing thing is the whole music industry is going through an accelerated time of massive change, and Saudi Arabia as a country is going through a massively accelerated time of change. So nothing’s taken for granted… and we can just think again about how to do things better, quicker, more efficiently.”

The presentation also included performances from Tamtam, Saudi pop artist Mishaal Tamer — who released his debut EP in 2020 via RCA Records and opened for OneRepublic on tour this past summer — and Riyadh-based producer and songwriter NTITLED.

LA3C was built to highlight communities creating culture around the world. LA3C created a paid partnership with the Saudi Music Commission to highlight the cultural shift in the commercial entertainment sector and with regional artists that have a presence in the United States and Saudi Arabia. LA3C is owned by Penske Media Corporation which is also the parent company of Billboard. 

Looking to grow its share of the fast-developing Middle East music market, Warner Music Group has signed Saudi singer Dalia Mubarak, one of the country’s biggest female stars and a leading voice among a new generation of progressive Arabic artists.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The signing — Warner Music’s first Saudi artist signing since it began investing in the Middle East region about four years ago — caps a breakthrough year for 31-year-old Mubarak, who earlier this month won Best Saudi Arabian Artist at the Distinctive International Arab Festivals Awards (DIAFA) in Dubai and was featured this summer on the cover of Vogue Arabia. 

Since releasing her debut single, “Turn The Table,” in 2014, the singer’s career has flourished in line with the gradual opening up of Saudi society following the appointment of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017, making him the de facto ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state. His reforms have helped modernize the country of 35 million people, where, up until a few years ago, concerts were banned and ultraconservative norms prevailed, including the segregation of unmarried men and women in public spaces. 

Historically rife with piracy, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) market nearly doubled between 2019 and 2021, and it was the fastest-growing region in the world last year, with recorded music revenues up 35% to $89.5 million, according to IFPI. More than 95% of MENA revenues came from streaming, helping draw the interest of major record companies, which are increasingly looking to emerging markets to find new talent and, in turn, extend their labels’ global reach. MENA’s potential is vast, with a total population of about 430 million people, of which 55% are under the age of 30, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The Mubarak signing follows a series of investments and acquisitions Warner Music has made recently in the Gulf region. Last year, the company acquired a minority stake — reportedly worth around $200 million — in Rotana Music, the Arab world’s leading independent record label, which is part of Rotana Group, owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal. 

In March, Warner completed the acquisition of Qanawat Music, a leading distributor across the Middle East and North Africa. WMG put roots down in the region in 2018 when it created Warner Music Middle East and opened an office in Beirut, Lebanon. 

Mubarak, who mostly sings in Arabic and has previously released music on Rotana, says she fulfilled a childhood dream by signing with Warner Music because of the opportunities and exposure it provides not just in her home country, but internationally as well.  

“Everyone is now looking to what’s going on in Saudi Arabia, how it’s changed, and I want to be part of that change and show the world that we have good artists,” Mubarak tells Billboard. “I want to be the bridge [between Saudi Arabia] and the international world.”    

Mubarak’s music mixes contemporary R&B and Western-style pop with traditional Khaleeji music, incorporating Arabic instruments like duff drums and mirwas. She says the music, which promotes positive messages of female empowerment, reflects the progressive changes that have occurred in her home country. 

The singer has built a large following in Saudi Arabia and the wider Arab diaspora with total YouTube views surpassing 350 million, according to Billboard’s calculations (subscribers to her official YouTube channel stand at just over 600,000). Her most popular song is 2020’s “Elly Yemshy 3ady,” which was the artist’s first single sung in the Egyptian dialect; it has generated more than 66 million views on YouTube. 

The singer has just under 700,000 followers on Anghami, the most popular music streaming service in the Middle East with around 20 million active users, according to company filings. (Warner was unable to provide comprehensive streaming numbers for Mubarak.)

Mubarak has also performed at many of Saudi Arabia’s biggest music festivals, including 2019’s Jeddah World Fest, where she joined DJ Steve Aoki onstage at the event’s close. (The festival also featured performances from Janet Jackson, 50 Cent and Chris Brown, and saw Nicki Minaj make international headlines when she pulled out of a scheduled appearance in protest against the Kingdom’s treatment of women.) 

Dalia Mubarak with Max Lousada and Simon Robson, Warner Music UK, Nov 2022.

Warner Music

Max Lousada, CEO of Warner Recorded Music, calls Mubarak a “trailblazer for change,” saying in a press release that she symbolizes “a new generation of female artists from the country who are rewriting the rules and winning fans across the region and beyond.”  

The singer, who has an American husband, divides her time between the Saudi capital city Riyadh and Dubai. “Other singers in the past were not as lucky to have this freedom and these opportunities that I’m now grateful for,” she says.

Alfonso Perez-Soto, Warner Recorded Music’s president of emerging markets, tells Billboard that the label intends for Mubarak to be the first of many artists Warner signs from the MENA region as part of its overall long-term strategy. Previously, WMG’s focus has been on establishing itself in the region, “building the access to catalogs and distribution and gaining resources” so it is fully equipped to provide “the best tools” to help break and build lasting careers for Arabic artists like Mubarak.  

Perez-Soto says the best of Warner Music’s worldwide resources are being made available to help Mubarak establish an international career. That includes teaming the artist up with English producers and songwriters for a short run of demo recording sessions in London earlier this month. 

The plan, says Perez-Soto, is that they will “create product and songs that will be appealing to the Western market,” as well as cater to Mubarak’s existing local fanbase by drawing on the Middle East’s rich cultural heritage. Going forward, releases will vary between English-language songs and Arabic-focused repertoire.

Perez-Soto says he hopes giving Saudi artists like Mubarak a global platform will help bring about further change in a country that, while rapidly developing, still draws widespread condemnation for human rights abuses, including a ban on political protest and discrimination against women and marginalized groups. 

“The situation is nowhere near close to perfect, but the country is making a very sincere effort [to change] in the right direction and we have to be part of enabling that effort and help that to happen,” says the Miami-based executive.  

“There is no hate in music,” says Mubarak. “Music is something beautiful and it creates peace and hopefully we’re going to be part of that.” She wants to inspire other females in the Arab States, including her two young daughters, to follow in her footsteps. “I hope to be their voice,” she says, “to motivate them and make their dreams happen.”

LONDON — Paul Pacifico, the outgoing CEO of the U.K.’s Association of Independent Music (AIM), has been hired to head the Saudi Music Commission, which is responsible for developing and championing the burgeoning music sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  

Pacifico takes up the post in January. He will succeed Mohammed Al Mulhem, who is listed on the Saudi Music Commission website as the incumbent chief executive. 

The Saudi Music Commission was established by the Ministry of Culture in 2020 as part of a wider push to grow Saudi Arabia’s economy and status as a high-end global tourist destination.  

The commission says its objective is overseeing the development of Saudi’s music market through building world-class infrastructure, providing universal access to music education, empowering music artists and creating job opportunities in the country, which has a population of 35 million.  

Specific market data for Saudi Arabia’s music industry isn’t currently available, with IFPI grouping the country within its Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regional statistics. According to IFPI’s latest Global Music Report, MENA was the fastest-growing region in 2021, with recorded music trade revenues growing by 35% to $89.5 million.  

International artists have, however, often faced strong criticism for performing in Saudi Arabia and helping promote a country widely accused of human rights abuses.  

Last year, the Human Rights Foundation and the fiancée of murdered Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi led calls for Justin Bieber to cancel his headline performance at a concert in the Red Sea city of Jeddah to mark the end of the Formula One season.  

Despite public pressure for Bieber to pull out, the concert went ahead on Dec. 5, with R&B singer Jason Derulo also performing at the show. In 2019, Nicki Minaj canceled her appearance at a concert in Jeddah. At the time, Minaj said she was boycotting the show in support of women’s rights, gay rights and freedom of expression. 

Only a few years ago, concerts were banned in Saudi Arabia, where ultraconservative norms prevailed, and unmarried men and women were segregated in public spaces. That changed with the appointment of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017, who has introduced sweeping reforms to modernize the country, attract foreign investment and create jobs for youth.   

MDLBEAST Soundstorm, the biggest music festival in the region, launched in the capital city of Riyadh in 2019, while its latest edition set to take place Dec. 1-3 with performances by DJ Khaled, Post Malone, Bruno Mars, Wizkid, David Guetta, Marshmello, Tiësto and Carl Cox, among others.    

“It is truly remarkable to see the level of support and the pace of change within Saudi Arabia as it builds a strong music sector for all to participate in,” Pacifico said in a statement announcing his appointment. He called the opportunity to help further develop the market a “huge privilege” and said he was looking forward to working with colleagues to “build a vibrant, inclusive and effective music sector.” 

It is not known if Pacifico will relocate from the U.K. to Saudi Arabia when he takes up his new post.   

In August, Pacifico announced he was stepping down as CEO of AIM after six years at the head of the organization, which represents more than 1,000 independent labels, artists and music companies, including Beggars Group, Domino, Warp and Ninja Tune.  

Pacifico’s term as CEO officially ended on Oct. 31, but he is continuing in the role until the end of the year when his successor takes over.

Key achievements from Pacifico’s two-term tenure include last year’s Music Climate Pact, an industrywide initiative to decarbonize the record business backed by all three major labels and dozens of indies.

Pacifico is an associate professor at Berklee College of Music in Valencia, Spain and is featured in Billboard’s 2022 International Power Players list. He spoke on behalf of the indie sector during last year’s U.K. Parliament probe into music streaming. And during Brexit negotiations and the COVID-19 pandemic, he petitioned the British government for greater support for independent musicians and music companies.   

Prior to joining AIM in 2016, Pacifico served as CEO of the UK’s Featured Artist Coalition and founding president of the International Artist Organisation.