“Enjoy your blood money” – fans’ outrage as Carl Cox, Jeff Mills and others confirmed for Saudi government-funded Soundstorm festival

“A stab in the back for women” say fans, claiming festival is a smokescreen for human rights abuses

Riyadh festival Soundstorm has announced its December lineup, sparking outrage among many online social media and messageboard users.

Soundstorm, organised and hosted by the parent company MDL Beast, has been announced for this coming 16th December. The event is set to feature many headlining DJs, including Carl Cox, Jeff Mills, Eric Prydz, Sven Vath and Charlotte De Witte.

Continuing under a different guise – with the event formerly known as MDL Beast, running since 2018 – the festival has been described positively by national outlets. XP Music Conference director Nada Alhelabi described the festival as “an opportunity for artists, for labels, for promoters… to build the infrastructure which will allow the industry to grow at its fastest possible rate across the region,” with a view to driving “cultural and economic change” not previously accessible in many areas of the Middle East.

However, since its launch in 2018, MDL Beast (and now Sandstorm) has faced continued and yearly criticism due to its funding by the government of Saudi Arabia, who are known for their human rights abuses. 

Critics of the festival, which was officially organised to showcase cultural changes in the country, instead say it has a more insidious purpose. The true motive for the funding, they claim, is to rehabilitate the Saudi government’s image, saving face for various international scandals including the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as the routine chronicling of various human rights organisations – including Amnesty International – of a general lack of free speech, religious and sexual discrimination, and routine executions occurring in the country, among other abuses.

“I cannot fucking believe this,” wrote Maha Ali, a Saudi native who had to leave her country of birth to receive an education, in a message to one of the DJs appearing on the lineup. “I’m a big fan, and I’m also from that region of the world… This is the biggest fucking stab in the back for many of us women who that country helped kill and treat inhumanely. I hope you enjoy your blood money”

In 2019, MDL Beast came under fire for paying Western entertainers, such as actor Armie Hammer and model Alessandra Ambrosio, to attend and promote the festival. The giveaways for their financial incentives mainly included the tags these celebrities used on Instagram, such as ‘#MDLBeastbrandambassadors’ and “#ad’.