PRISTINA: Amid a sea of denim shorts, selfies, sequins and thumping bass lines, the setting could easily be mistaken for Coachella or Glastonbury.
But the Sunny Hill festival in Pristina is helping turn Kosovo into a go-to destination during Europe’s summer festival season, thanks in large part to its founder: Dua Lipa.
For years, Kosovo was associated with its bloody war against Serbia that pitted ethnic Albania insurgents against Serb forces in the late 1990s, leaving thousands dead and triggering a refugee crisis.
But the arrival of Lipa on the international pop scene has helped showcase Kosovo’s other side — young, talented and full of ambition.
With more than 87 million followers on Instagram and more than 25 million albums sold, the British-born singer of Kosovo descent is one of the biggest pop stars in the world.
Alongside an endless tour schedule, film roles and hosting a popular podcast, Lipa remains one of the most vocal promoters of all things Kosovo.
Launched in 2018 with her father, the Sunny Hill festival she created has brought some of the biggest names to perform in this tiny corner of the Balkan.
Late Thursday afternoon, as the first notes echoed from the main stage, a young crowd passed through the festival entrance, ever grateful to Lipa for bringing another star-studded line up to the capital Pristina.
“I’m very happy that she’s promoting our country with these big, big artists and bringing them to our country,” said Rita Ramadani, 19.
For its fifth edition, Sunny Hill boasts a roster of performers that rivals more established festivals.
Headliners this year include British rap sensation Stormzy and the king of afrobeat, Burna Boy.
Bebe Rexha — who is also of ethnic Albanian origin — electrified the crowd as she sang her global hit “Me, Myself and I,” while speaking Albanian with the audience in between songs.
Albania and Kosovo flags dotted the stages and were scattered across the audience during performances, where festival goers regularly hold two crossed hands in the sign of the Albanian eagle aloft.
This is a festival in Kosovo, afterall.
“We are all very happy that this is happening right now and people from all the world got to hear about Kosovo, and about Sunny Hill. Thanks to Dua Lipa,” said festival attendee Nita Krasniqii.
And while the festival attracts thousands of locals, music lovers from abroad are also making their way to Pristina.
“We’re here because it’s amazing music,” said Michael Maguire, who traveled to the festival from Brussels with friends.
“Kosovo’s an amazing country, full of young people, and very vibrant.”
But hosting a concert in Kosovo has not always been easy.
“In the first years it was more difficult to invite artists as their managers would look online for information about Kosovo and see it might be risky,” Lipa’s father and festival co-founder Dukagjin Lipa told local media.
“Now we don’t have that problem because we have built a name!“
According to organizers, around 45 percent of the festival’s tickets this year were sold abroad.
Priced at 200 euros a ticket — which is nearly half the average monthly salary in Kosovo — few local youngsters are able to afford entry to the four-day festival.
To help control costs, Pristina’s municipal government provided the land, security, transportation and garbage collection for free.
“It is miraculous that it happens in Pristina,” mayor Perparim Rama told AFP.
“It provides us with the fantastic opportunity to showcase our people, our culture, our heritage.”
And even though Lipa is not officially scheduled to perform this year as she manages the festival from the sidelines and watches performances from the VIP section, the spotlight remains fixated on her.
“In the United States, we say God save America,” rapper Mozzik shouted to the audience during his set.
“I say ‘God Save Dua Lipa’.”

BERLIN: A spicy row has erupted between Turkiye and Germany over what constitutes a doner kebab, with Berlin objecting to a Turkish push for protected status for the iconic snack.
The humble doner, made with thinly sliced meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie, has its origins in Turkiye but is also beloved in Germany after being introduced there by Turkish migrants.
In April, the International Doner Federation (Udofed), based in Turkiye, filed an application to the European Commission to grant the doner kebab Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG) status.
From the exact meat and spices to the thickness of the knife used to slice the meat, Udofed wants the definition of the doner to adhere to a strict list of criteria.
If successful, the application would bar businesses in the European Union from using the name doner kebab unless it met the criteria, giving it the same protected status as Italy’s bufala mozzarella or Spain’s Serrano ham.
In its application, Udofed hails the doner’s origins during the Ottoman Empire, citing a recipe found in manuscripts dating from 1546.
But that has sparked an uproar in Germany, where the doner has become an emblem of the country’s large Turkish community, descended from “guest workers” invited under a massive economic program in the 1960s and 70s.
The German capital even claims the doner kebab to be “a Berlin invention.”
“It happened in Berlin: Legend has it, Kadir Nurman was the first to put the meat in flatbread in 1972 and invented the version of doner that is so beloved in Germany,” according to the city’s website.
“The doner belongs to Germany. Everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves how it is prepared and eaten here. There is no need for any guidelines from Ankara,” said Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir, whose parents migrated from Turkiye.
Germany’s agriculture ministry viewed Turkiye’s application “with astonishment,” a spokesman said.
If this “imprecise” and “contradictory” proposal is accepted by the commission, “the economic consequences for the German gastronomic sector would be enormous,” the spokesman said.
The DEHOGA hotel and catering union also warned of a “lack of clarity and transparency,” “difficulties with legal definitions” and “a raft of future disputes.”
The German government lodged an objection to the Turkish application just ahead of the European deadline on Wednesday.
In Berlin, where the doner has long surpassed the sausage as the convenience snack of choice, Birol Yagci is concerned that the Turkish version only allows beef, lamb or chicken.
“Here it’s different. The traditional recipe is made with veal,” the chef at a Turkish restaurant in the city’s Kreuzberg district said.
Behind him, two columns of meat glisten on their spits, one ironically made from turkey — the bird — which would also not be allowed under the new definition.
“People eat doners all over the world. Turkiye can’t just dictate to others what they should do,” said the 50-year-old.
“My customers won’t want to eat lamb. It has a very particular taste,” said Arif Keles, 39, owner of a doner kiosk, whose customers include Germany’s national football team.
Keles too said he would sooner charge the name of his products than alter his recipes.
“My customers know what they’re eating, so as long as the quality is there it doesn’t matter what you call it,” he said.
Germany accounts for two-thirds of doner kebab sales in Europe with the market worth 2.4 billion euros ($2.6 billion) a year, according to the Association of Doner Manufacturers in Europe (ATDID).
In April, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier even took Keles with him on a visit to Turkiye as a symbol of the close ties between the two countries.
Keles arrived to serve his wares at an official reception armed with a huge spit of veal, much to the “curiosity” of his guests.
“In Turkiye, doner is eaten on a plate. I served it Berlin-style, on bread with sauce, and they loved it,” said the chef, whose grandfather emigrated from Turkiye to Germany.
But the European Commission must now decide whether doner diversity will win the day, according to the institution’s agriculture spokesman Olof Gill.
If the objection to the Turkish application is found to be admissible, the two parties will have a maximum of six months to reach a compromise, he said.