Jeddah’s old town played host to MDLBEAST’s boutique festival Balad Beast. MDLBEAST, a music entertainment company based in Saudi, put on the event spread across five traditional Al-Balad courtyards, the historic sites were transformed by beautiful lights as 12,000 music fans descended into the area for tunes, vibes, and some fun.
The festival brought together lovers of dance music, house, and hip hop, for live performances from some of the biggest names in the genres. MDLBEAST organized for more than 70 local, regional, and international artists to perform within the famous neighborhood. For the brands first festival in Jeddah, in partnerhsip with Tale of us, the festival welcomed the likes of Rick Ross, DJ Salvatore Ganacci as well as local and regional talents including Vinyl Mode, Tamtam, Dana Hourani and Ntitled.
The festivals MDLBEAST has been putting on across the kingdom have been transforming the global perception of the region and its music culture, hip hop star Rick Ross had this to say:
“I was actually here four years ago in 2018. You must definitely see the growth, see the energy, see the culture and hip-hop growing. To see a gathering such as this with the different stages, different artists, local, and international. This is big!”
The event was a success in many rights, attended by 25,000 fans over the weekend its clear that people are hungry for this injection of culture into the scene.
Weighing in on what Balad Beast means for local artists, Ntitled said “It’s a unique performance in Al-Balad, it’s a UNESCO world Heritage site. This is a different type of performance”
Balad Beast follows on just a week from MDLBEAST’s signature two annual events: the XP Music Futures music conference, and mega three-day festival SOUNDSTORM, both based in Riyadh. Growing in size year upon year, this year’s SOUNDSTORM attracted more than 600,000 fans to watch live performances by artists including David Guetta, DJ Khaled, Bruno Mars, Tiësto, Swedish House Mafia and Post Malone, plus more than 200 other artists.
Hopefully the success of projects like these means that there is more to come in the region, Balad Beast was a visual and auditory extravaganza and the people definitely want more.