“What’s going to be the next Latin? What’s next after K-Pop? Who else could replicate the success of Afrobeats?” We’ve heard some iteration of this question countless times over the past year. And if the lineup at Coachella this year is any indication, the answer might be Arab pop.
This year marks the first time in the festival’s history that an artist will perform an entire set in Arabic. The woman behind that set is Elyanna, a Palestinian-Chilean artist who has been part of the new wave of Arab pop stars hoping to leave their mark on the global music industry. Her debut EP has over 7.2M on demand streams in the US, and her breakout single from that EP, Ana Lahale, has over 25M streams globally release-to-date. Additionally, Elyanna’s overall On-Demand Audio streams in the US more than doubled the week ending 4/13/23 (+105%) heading into the first weekend of Coachella.
The broader success of Arabic music outside of the Middle East has in part been supported by the Arab diaspora. Countries in South and Southeast Asia have relatively high rates of listening to music. In the countries where Luminate performs its market research, Indonesia is the #1 country outside the Middle East with the highest rate of listening to music in Arabic at 15%, with India and Malaysia not too far behind at 12% and 11% respectively. There are even relatively high rates in some European countries like the Netherlands (11%) and France (9%). With only 3% of U.S. music listeners listening to music in Arabic, there is still sizable room for growth.
If you want to see what the hype is about, you can catch the live stream of Coachella weekend 2 exclusively on YouTube this coming weekend. Elyanna goes on at 2:30 pm PT on the Gobi stage
