The MENA Acts Not to Miss at Utrecht's Le Guess Who Festival

Widely considered as one of the world’s most forward-thinking music festivals, Le Guess Who? has just announced the full line up for its 16th edition, taking place in Utrecht, the Netherlands between November 9th and the 12th.

This year, with the help of guest curator and Egyptian mastering engineer Heba Kadry, the festival takes a closer look at the artists making change in MENA’s music scene, championing inventive acts that have been working to develop the genres and musical movements coming out of the region.

Be it post-shaabi coming out of Egypt, pioneered by the likes of 3PHAZ and El Kontessa, or Palestinian producer Al Nather’s hard-hitting style of drill and trap music, the festival offers a thorough line-up of beloved regional acts that have made a mark on the industry, and who have earned international praise and recognition along their careers.

Acts like Julmud, Faten Kanaan, and Baskot Lel Baltageyya will also be performing at the festival, and while new project from regional trail blazers will allow us to explore new avenues of music, such as Deena Abdelwahed’s ‘Jbal Rrsas’ and ZULI & Omar El Sadek’s ‘λ’.

As the festival is set to take over the entire city center of Utrecht, these artists will be performing in multiple clubs, bars, and pop-up venues around the city, alongside the festival’s impressive line-up of international acts.

Le Guess Who?’s philosophy has always been to extend their platform to genre-defying artists, while doing their best to provide fair representation regardless of view-count or online presence, putting the substance of the music at the forefront of their curation process.

The acts curated by Heba Kadry are:

3Phaz

Al Nather

Alessandro Cortini

Amina Alaoui

Baskot Lel Baltageyya

Deena Abdelwahed presents Jbal Rrsas

El Kontessa

Faten Kanaan

Julmud

Kamilya Jubran

Marta Salogni & Valentina Magaletti

Randall Dunn

Vessel (live)

ZULI & Omar El Sadek present λ

For the full line-up, head to leguesswho.com/lineup. Stay tuned to SceneNoise for exclusive coverage and updates on the 16th edition of Le Guess Who?.