In step with global music trends, Coachella ropes in Korean, Pakistani, Indian artistes

Pakistani Singer Ali Sethi performs during the first weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, on April 16, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 17 April 2023
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In step with global music trends, Coachella ropes in Korean, Pakistani, Indian artistes

  • The 2023 edition of the festival has more than half of artistes hailing from outside the US
  • India's Diljit Dosanjh and Pakistan's Ali Sethi drew large crowds to their high-energy sets

Indio, United States: The original 1999 Coachella lineup was decidedly oriented towards rock acts and full of white men, but today, the premier music festival's lineup is more diverse and international than ever. 

The 2023 edition of the massive desert festival is a showcase of global talent, with more than half of the performing artists hailing from outside the United States, including artists from Puerto Rico, South Korea, Belgium and Pakistan. 

The centering of genre-spanning music performed in a variety of languages highlights the US industry's evolving response to global tastes, as streaming and social media offer obvious metrics on what's popular, and profitable. 

Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican reggaeton master and world's biggest star, headlined the weekend's opening night with an adrenaline-pumping performance that paid homage to Caribbean music's influential lineage and had his fans screaming with delight. 

On Saturday night, the K-pop megastars BLACKPINK put on one of the weekend's buzziest shows -- and made history as the first Asian act to headline the festival -- with tens of thousands of revelers descending on the main stage for a bombastic set of pop bangers preceded by a mesmerizing, drone-powered light show and punctuated by pyrotechnics. 

For CedarBough Saeji, a professor of Korean and East Asian studies who specializes in K-pop, the festival lineup emphasizing the hottest acts from across the globe is long overdue. 

And when it comes to K-pop, "we've reached a point where the ongoing public demand for K-pop... is clear, even to people who may be watching the financial bottom line much more than they're watching trends," she said. 

"America's a very large music market, there's a lot of people there," Saeji continued. "It's a very, very important tastemaker -- but world cultural flows have shifted." 

"You don't have to be American to be the top group in the world." 

Major artists, including Spain's Rosalia, Iceland's Bjork and Nigeria's Burna Boy received top billings on the festival's main stage, while India's Diljit Dosanjh and Pakistan's Ali Sethi drew large crowds to their high-energy sets. 

"When I saw those brown faces in their best, sort of like, South Asian regalia with a twist, it gave me so much courage," Sethi told AFP following his set. 

For "those of us who are coming from other places, coming from other traditions, who are speaking languages -- musical languages, visual languages, and literally languages that haven't been heard here before -- that Coachella welcomes us and has us here, it's a new trip." 

Sethi was already wildly popular prior to his Coachella performance: his song "Pasoori" was Google's most searched song in 2022 and boasts more than half a billion views on YouTube. 

According to scholar Saeji, the internet has played a vital role in "leveling the playing field." 

"The internet is the reason why worldwide audiences have so much more awareness now of artists coming out of countries that aren't traditional hegemons," she said. 

"I predict that no matter how much the US music industry may try to continue to try to gatekeep, eventually, we're going to see a situation where we have charting music coming from multiple languages all the time." 

"And that's beautiful." 

Also on feature were France's Christine and the Queens, Argentina's Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and Belgium's Angele. 

And Palestinian-Chilean Elyanna broke ground as the first artist to perform a full set in Arabic at the festival. 

Turkish electronic artist Omer Mesci, who performs under the name Minus the Light, was born and raised in Turkey and told AFP after his set that it's particularly "inspiring" as a DJ to encounter an international slate of performers. 

"Music is music," he said. "That's what makes it beautiful. It's so colorful in terms of the music, in terms of the people." 

Rosalia -- the Spanish superstar who made her name as a flamenco revisionist before soaring to the top of pop with her blockbuster third album, "Motomami" -- was among the weekend's most hotly anticipated acts, with fans clamoring for her as she blasted through a set of her daring, kaleidoscopic songs blending styles. 

"Buenas noches, Coachella!" she shouted as cheers cascaded through the crowd. "You fill my heart with your presence. I come from Barcelona, that's why this stage is so special. It's because of you that I'm here." 


Kneecap delivers pro-Palestine message at Coachella

Updated 21 April 2025
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Kneecap delivers pro-Palestine message at Coachella

DUBAI: Irish band Kneecap took to the stage at the second week of the Coachella music festival in California to shine a light on Israel’s war against Palestine.

“Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” read a projection during the hip-hop trio’s performance. “It is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes.”

"The Palestinians have nowhere to go. It's their home, and they're bombing it from the sky. If you're not calling it a genocide, what are you calling it?" said Kneecap rapper Moglai Bap, who was wearing a keffiyeh.

The musician went on to lead the audience in a "free, free Palestine" chant.


Saudi-supported film to screen at Cannes parallel section ACID

Updated 21 April 2025
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Saudi-supported film to screen at Cannes parallel section ACID

DUBAI: ACID, a Cannes Film Festival parallel section, has announced the lineup for its 2025 edition, which includes the Red Sea Film Foundation-supported film “Life After Siham” from Egyptian filmmaker Namir Abdel Messeeh.

The autobiographical hybrid-documentary – supported by Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Fund – follows the director as he grieves his mother’s death while dealing with a creative impasse as he leads a writing workshop in Egypt.

The film follows two parallel tracks, mixing family footage the director shot before and after his mother’s passing against the fictional backdrop of a creative retreat set at the late Egyptian director Youssef Chahine’s one-time residence.

“The film will also be a portrait of contemporary Egypt,” Messeeh told Variety in an earlier interview. “Depicting a younger generation as they develop their own creative projects in post-revolution Egypt. Through them we’ll explore different facets of the modern country.”


Jennifer Lopez turns heads at F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 

Updated 20 April 2025
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Jennifer Lopez turns heads at F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 

JEDDAH: US superstar Jennifer Lopez turned heads at the F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in Jeddah ahead of her after-race performance.

The “Kiss of the Spider Woman” actress and singer made an appearance at the final practice on Saturday in a pink catsuit with a zipper down the front.

She performed on stage on Saturday night with a string of her most famous hits as part of an after-race concert lineup including Usher, Major Lazer, Peggy Gou and PartyNextDoor, alongside Arab stars such as Marwan Pablo, Tul8te, Hisham Abbas, Mostafa Amar and Hamid El-Shaeri.

Jennifer Lopez performed in Jeddah on Saturday night. (Supplied)

Widely regarded as one of the world’s most influential entertainers, Lopez has made her mark across music, film and television. She remains the only female artist to simultaneously top both the US box office and music charts, with over $3 billion in global box office earnings, more than 80 million records sold and billions of streams and views across her music catalogue.


Japan’s Koji Yamamura brings expertise to Saudi Film Festival masterclass

Updated 20 April 2025
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Japan’s Koji Yamamura brings expertise to Saudi Film Festival masterclass

DHAHRAN: Animation lovers attending the 11th Saudi Film Festival this week were treated to a masterclass by Oscar-nominated Japanese director Koji Yamamura.

Yamamura gave a masterclass titled “Giving Shape to Invisible Light” on Saturday.

While the Saudi Film Festival typically focuses on local and regional cinema, it also offers audiences a chance to engage with global voices. This year, Japan holds a special place in the lineup, with the festival running until April 23.

Masterclass attendees watched as Yamamura explained his process and shared several of his shorts, which he dissected, offering guidance and insight into his creative approach.

Yamamura, regarded as one of Japan’s most successful animation filmmakers, began creating films at just 13 years old. After six painstaking years and thousands of drawings, his 10-minute 2002 film “Mt. Head” earned him an Oscar nomination in the Best Short Film category.

The story follows a man who eats cherry pits to avoid waste, only to have a cherry tree sprout from his head. What begins as a nuisance quickly escalates into chaos as strangers flock to picnic and swim atop his head.

Narrated in the traditional rakugo style — with a single voice and sparse instrumentation — the work blends classical storytelling with modern themes. Beneath the dark humor lies a critique of isolationism, environmental degradation, and the illusion of control. The more the man tries to resist change, the more disorder he invites, leading to a haunting end.

Yamamura explained that many of his works were inspired by traditional tales that are over 150 years-old—stories where the beginning and end are already known — so the creative challenge lies in how he fills the space.

His work moves fluidly between absurdity and clarity, often occupying a Kafkaesque space that encourages the viewer to dive in until the narrative fully takes hold.

After the masterclass, he sat down to answer questions by moderator Naoures Rouissi of the Arab Film Festival Zurich, and the audience was invited to take part in a Q&A portion.

Abdulrahman Al-Qarzaee, a fluent Japanese speaker who is Saudi, translated.

“I’m very interested in Arabic culture. It is my first time in Saudi Arabia — I would like to sketch it. I think the landscape is very different from Japan,” Yamamura told Arab News after the session.

When Arab News asked if he might create a new work inspired by his visit to the Kingdom, he didn’t hesitate.

“Probably, yeah. This is a very special and different experience for me,” he concluded with a smile.


Saudi comedy film ‘Ambulance’ to get sequel

Updated 19 April 2025
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Saudi comedy film ‘Ambulance’ to get sequel

DUBAI: A sequel is already in the works for “Esaaf” (“Ambulance”), the new comedy starring Saudi actor and stand-up comedian Ibrahim Al-Hajjaj and directed by British filmmaker Colin Teague.

The film premiered on Tuesday, making history as the first Arabic-language movie to be released by Imax. 

The plot revolves around two Saudi paramedics who discover a briefcase containing holding SR2 million (around $533,300) and find themselves caught up in a dangerous kidnapping scheme.

The movie is written by Alberto Lopez and produced by Al-Hajjaj’s House of Comedy, Saudi producer Talal Anazi’s Black Light Operations and former MBC Studios chief Peter Smith in tandem with Saudi Media Company. 

The film marks Al-Hajjaj’s first major release since “Sattar,” the 2023 wrestling film which grossed over $30 million, primarily from Saudi audiences.