Electronic Dance Music Festivals in Riyadh: Pop Culture as a Space of Cooptation and Contestation

Within the course of a decade, electronic dance music (EDM) grew from an underground subculture into one of the most popular music genres among youth in Saudi Arabia. EDM parties developed from an intimate, semi-legal pastime practice of cosmopolitan youth into state-sponsored mass parties. In this...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inArabian humanities Vol. 14
Main Author Derbal, Nora
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published CEFREPA 01.03.2021
Centre Français d’Archéologie et de Sciences Sociales de Sanaa
Subjects
entertainment
music
nationalism
pop culture
Saudi Arabia
youth
cooptation
débordement de foule
jeunesse
entertainment
Vision 2030
pop culture
mob action
youth
Saudi Arabia
music
loisirs
déviance
musique
nationalism
nationalisme
Arabie saoudite
deviance
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Summary:Within the course of a decade, electronic dance music (EDM) grew from an underground subculture into one of the most popular music genres among youth in Saudi Arabia. EDM parties developed from an intimate, semi-legal pastime practice of cosmopolitan youth into state-sponsored mass parties. In this article, I discuss the effects of the state’s embrace of pop culture as a strategy of the new Saudi nationalism, heralded by Vision 2030. In the name of the diversification of the economy, today the Saudi state invests in local music festivals. Yet, rather than understanding Saudi youth as mere objects of state policy, I suggest that Saudi youth navigate, reject, and appropriate these new cultural spaces, and turn them into an arena, where all kinds of subversive practices can become possible.
ISSN:2308-6122
DOI:10.4000/cy.6286