Coronavirus: Saudi Arabian women perform in all-female music festival online

Saudi Arabian artists headlined a virtual all-female music festival on Wednesday in the latest edition of Dubai’s The Beat DXB Lockdown, the region’s biggest online music festival.

The Beat DXB Lockdown: Saudi Femmes line-up featured RnB singers, soul artists, a DJ, and even an opera singer.

The 15 women – including Jeddah-based Sarah Chafei, Nourah Sings in Riyadh, Los-Angeles based Tamtam– took to their respective Instagram pages for a 15-minute performance each.

The Kingdom’s first opera singer Sawsan al-Bahiti also took part in the festival, and performed renditions of several famous songs.

The festival was founded by Hass Dennaoui – the host of Saudi Arabia’s first and only FM hip-hop radio show – more than five years ago in Jeddah, and was later moved to Dubai.

However, Dennaoui, who goes by the name Big Hass, decided to take The Beat to Instagram since the coronavirus outbreak has forced artists across the world to cancel shows and music tours.

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The Saudi Femmes edition of the festival has also been an opportunity for female Saudi Arabian artists to “destroy every single stereotype thought” about them, Dennaoui said on his Instagram page.

Shows and festivals have been canceled worldwide to prevent the deadly coronavirus from spreading.