“More than 60% of the 35million population are under 30, think about it, a new brand of culture is coming on to the international stage. It’s fascinating. For creativity: Saudi is where it is at.” – By Sofia Guellaty, Founder and Creative Director, MILLE World and Advocate on the Board of the XP Music Conference in Riyadh from 13-16 December.
You won’t have read about it in global media publications, you probably haven’t seen it on TV, but over the past few years there has been a colossal transformation taking place in Saudi Arabia. What you think you know, you probably don’t know.
At the core of this has been a government-led initiative to open Saudi Arabia to the world. And more importantly, to show the world what Saudi Arabia is truly made of. I am talking millions of kids who after years, have now license to explore who they truly are by being offered cultural content that is unbounded, unfiltered, and more importantly authentic and relevant to their own stories.
Aside from economical plans of increasing tourism, and banking on the entertainment industry, in Saudi and unlike other places in the Arab world, lies an authentic will and a real infrastructure to give space to homegrown voices. Saudi is offering cultural programs that are authentic to the Arab world, inviting a global audience to discover our regional talents while giving them access to international networking. It starts from home.
Here, millions of people who never dared to dream making it in creative industries are offered incredible opportunities they would never find abroad. And MDLBEAST is one of them. Only one thing is asked of them: come as you are, Saudi traditions and all.
For someone like me who’s worked so much in Saudi and travels around the world looking for inspiration, to see this youth culture finding its power and claiming it is incredible. Socially, economically, culturally, the pace of change is unusually fast and the opportunities created are fascinating. Of course, there are shocking paradoxes, of course this is only the beginning, and the reception can still be met with scepticism.
Saudi is building a new narrative for the region they represent with more freedom, more pride, and more opportunities to dream for a better future. The measure of success will lie in trying to get as many people as possible from the region and the world over to get involved and shift their daily thinking. We want this new young generation to consume more culture, with the hope that they take it on board and grow it, add to it and pass it on. This is how shared cultures grow.
The world has never seen a country like Saudi just turn on the lights to a creative economy. The idea is to let the world in, while offering something so fresh to the international stage. Let it be transformed by the encounter. Bring the local to the global narratives to enrich the global ones. They’re saying, we’re here and we’re ourselves come get inspired by the millions of people, the rich history, the tensions, the patrimony, and the new underground scenes mushrooming all over. While I’m not Saudi, I take a huge sense of pride in what’s happening as an Arab and I want to be a part of this new shift.
Sofia Guellaty is a Tunisian journalist, the Founder and Creative Director of Middle Eastern youth media publication and creative agency, MILLE World.
Along with a number of other cultural representatives and music industry experts from around the Middle East and the world, she will be speaking at MDLBEAST’s XP Music Conference in Riyadh in December, a 3-day event aimed at accelerating and amplifying the music industry of the region.
