The Arab world will be showcased in all its glory at one of the largest music festivals that can be found anywhere in the world. One of the performers at Coachella, a massive music festival in California that will take place over the course of two weeks in April, will be the Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna.
She will be performing alongside a large number of well-known and influential pop and electronic performers, including R&B singer Frank Ocean, K-pop sensations Blackpink, and Latin pop star Bad Bunny, among others.
It’s fantastic that a local musician had the opportunity to perform at such a prestigious gathering. The fact that his or her work is a proud part of the rich musical legacy of the Arab world is something that should be acknowledged.
This will continue until the euphoria completely overshadows what other Arab artists who have accomplished comparable things with significantly less attention have done. The advertising campaign and media coverage regarding Elyanna’s planned performance at Coachella, which contains some dubious claims, are examples of this.
Elyanna’s Arabic Coachella set promises cultural fusion!
One of the reasons for this is that she has a chance of being the first Palestinian musician to perform at the event. It was only a year ago that DJ Sama, whose true name is Sama’ Abdulhadi, performed at the event, so I’m curious to see what kind of reaction he has this time around.
She is the first performer at Coachella to sing in Arabic, according to the press and Elyanna’s official Instagram, which is another claim that has been made about her. Additionally, this is not correct. Getting to the bottom of this, though, will require a significant amount of research. If you went to the event in 2017 and went to the smaller Gobi Tent, you would have heard a lot of Arabic music played by the Israeli-Arab ensemble Dudu Tassa & the Kuwaitis.
In fact, if you went to the festival in 2018, you would have heard a lot of Arabic music played by the same group. The band performed their own original rock renditions of traditional Iraqi and Kuwaiti folk tunes during their set. The band was fronted by Tassa, a Mizrahi Jewish musician originally from Iraq and Kuwait. His grandfather was the famed Kuwaiti vocalist Daoud Al-Kuwaity.
According to Tassa, they enjoyed a lot of success at Coachella. “What we were worried about before we came was how the American audience would react to Arab music and Arab players playing with Jewish players at those concerts,” he told Billboard after the show.
“We were worried about how the American audience would react to Arab music and Arab players playing with Jewish players at those concerts.” “Their affection for us came as a complete shock.” It is in everyone’s best interest to reject the absurd notion that Elyanna is the first Arabic musician to perform at Coachella as much as possible. This assertion is currently circulating around the media.
DJ Sama and other Arab band members of Dudu Tassa & the Kuwaitis, such as cellist and backup singer Adel Jubran, have appeared at Coachella in the past. DJ Sama has also performed at the festival. In 2018, performances were given by the Moroccan hip-hop sensation French Montana as well as the Canadian Palestinian rapper Belly.
In the next year, an Australian singer known as Wafia (full name: Wafia Al-Rikabi) took to the stage. Wafia is of Iraqi and Syrian descent. However, none of these problems should detract from the accomplishments that Elyanna has made. She has demonstrated both her intelligence and her perseverance behind the scenes by making it to this year’s performance lineup alongside such a well-known ensemble.
Elyanna, whose given name is Elian Marjieh, first came to public attention in 2020 with the release of her EP bearing the same name. Her expressive singing was brought to the forefront thanks to this superb compilation of Arabic tunes that featured electronic undertones and elements.
Wassim “Sal” Slaiby, a Canadian-Lebanese music industry heavyweight who represents The Weeknd, discovered it online. Slaiby is The Weeknd’s representative. The Weeknd will be the featured performer at Coachella this year.
It appears that things will go well for the artist when you combine the inherent talent of Elyanna with Slaiby’s expertise in the market. We can only hope that it will be one in which Elyanna’s star will be able to shine without the clamour of erroneous assertions, regardless of how well-intentioned such claims may be.