Review: Jeddah’s Balad Beast turns historic streets into giant stage

Two-day festival showcases vibrant sounds of the coastal city’s music scene

Jeddah rapper Lil Eazy says the Saudi hip-hop scene is vibrant. Photo: MDL Beast

Jeddah's Balad Beast music festival turned the city's historic Al Balad district into a giant stage on Thursday, the first night of the two-day event.

Created by MDL Beast, the organisers behind Riyadh’s mammoth Soundstorm festival, it is a vibrant showcase of Jeddah’s evolving youth and music culture, turning the Unesco World Heritage Site into a neo-modern hub of electronic music, where rappers and DJs shared spaces with traditional baqalas and coffee spots.

Local artists performed across the festival’s five stages, some of them tucked into the nooks and crannies of Al Balad’s labyrinthine alleyways and thoroughfares. Meanwhile, the main stage transformed the facades of flanking traditional residential buildings into a dynamic canvas, projecting visuals of the performances in real-time.

Performing ahead of international headliners British soul singer Michael Kiwanuka and American hip-hop star Gunna on Thursday was Lil Eazy, a Somali rapper raised in Jeddah. His 40-minute set was packed with crowd favourites, including Taka and Dose Dose, percolating tracks that fused hip-hop trap beats with swaggering Saudi slang deeply rooted in Jeddah’s identity.

Lil Eazy performed as images of his set were projected onto the facades of buildings flanking the stage. Photo: MDL Beast

“There is definitely a real energy happening in Saudi Arabia, but especially here in Jeddah,” Lil Eazy, whose real name Abubakar Al Jilany, told The National after his set. “Sometimes people who follow the scene here don’t pick up on the nuances between different regions.

"Artists from Jeddah have their own musical flavour compared to other parts of the country because the city has always been multicultural. If you listen to my lyrics, you’ll hear slang influenced by Egyptian and Sudanese cultures. We just add our own spin on it. That’s why hip-hop and dance music feel so natural here.”

Hassan Ghazzawi, one half of pioneering Jeddah EDM act Dish Dash who also performed on Thursday, echoed that sentiment. “Artists from Jeddah, in my opinion, have always had this urge to try new things and connect with people through their work," he said. "They’re open to diverse influences but still find a way to bring it back to their own culture and create something unique.”

Dish Dash perform at Balad Beast in Jeddah. Photo: MDL Beast

Dish Dash’s set demonstrated how these influences have been seamlessly incorporated. Jabal Dukkan, named after a prominent mountain in Bahrain, laces throbbing techno beats with cascading Middle Eastern melodies, while Yanbu, an ode to the Saudi Arabian port city, takes a more subtle melodic approach in tribute to its coastal atmosphere.

More Jeddah artists will take the stage to conclude Balad Beast on Friday, including the promising rapper Asayel, whose new single Asliyah is bursting with evocative Hejazi slang derived from her native Saudi region, which also includes Makkah. Local DJ stalwarts Baloo and Vinyl Mode will also headline the secondary Souq Stage.

Expect Lil Eazy and Ghazzawi to be supporting their colleagues from the crowd. “The scene here is tight-knit, and there is this genuine feeling of shared wins,” said Lil Eazy. “I think it’s down to the fact that we are all seeing these things, from having these venues to festivals, happening in front of us. I don’t think we take it for granted. Whenever I see my friends shine on stage, it inspires me to work harder on what I do.”

Ghazzawi added: “Listen, I still remember less than 10 years ago performing in underground parties in compounds and villas. In a way, it was the perfect place to get better, and now that it is all available, all of us from that generation are just ready to go and show what we have.”