Rabat — Belgian-Moroccan star Dystinct shared the stage with Palestinian-Jordanian singer-songwriter Issam Najjar at Dubai World Trade Centre in one of the most talked-about nights at Dubai’s “Beat The Heat DXB.”
Najjar opened the night with a run of his most beloved tracks, including “Hadal Ahbek.”
More than five years after its release, the song is still making a statement, ,currently sitting at number 13 on Billboard Arabia’s Top 50 Levantine chart.
Later in the set, while performing “Amar” off his newest album “Night in Cairo,” Najjar pulled off one of the night’s most memorable moments placing a spontaneous FaceTime call live on stage and shared it with the crowd.
Once Najjar left the stage, Dystinct made his Beat The Heat DXB debut, launching straight into a string of fan favorites including “Ghazali,” “Ya Baba,” and “Yamal.”
Dystinct has spent the past few years becoming one of the most streamed artists in the Arab world, and he recently set a Guinness World Record for the longest combined run at number one on the Billboard Arabia Hot 100.
The show was the second stop in Beat The Heat DXB’s fifth season, part of the wider Dubai Summer Surprises calendar, which opened on July 11 with Egyptian rock band, Cairokee.
It will run through August with sets from different artists like Sultan Al Murshed and Talal Sam, Rasha Rizk, and Al Shami and Leen Hayek.
Between the two sets, the night built into one continuous wave of energy that carried through to the end of the show.
It is fair to say that this is a strong sign that homegrown Arabic pop, from Morocco to Jordan, is driving the region’s live music scene forward.
