Benson Boone, Post Malone & More Join Soundstorm 2025 Amid Riyadh Comedy Festival Controversy

This past month, respective big-name comedians came nether occurrence for performing astatine the Riyadh Comedy Festival successful Saudi Arabia contempt the country’s past of quality rights violations. Now, Benson Boone, Post Malone and Halsey could beryllium facing akin backlash, arsenic each 3 of them person joined the lineup of the city’s arguable Soundstorm euphony festival for 2025.

The event’s billing was precocious announced, with The Kid Laroi, Tyla, Kaytranada, Idris Elba, Ava Max, Major Lazer, Metro Boomin and DJ Snake besides revealed to beryllium performing astatine the upcoming event. Boone and Posty volition service arsenic headliners, arsenic volition Calvin Harris.

“SOUNDSTORM is the region’s boldest 3-day euphony festival, held each December successful Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,” reads a statement connected the event’s website. “Set successful Banban, it turns Riyadh into the City of Sound, with hundreds of thousands of fans dancing to the beats of global, determination and section artists.”

But portion lineup announcements typically aren’t origin for controversy, Soundstorm’s is — particularly this year. Human Rights Watch has agelong been asking musicians not to execute astatine the yearly event, and the contented is tenser than ever pursuing the first-ever Riyadh Comedy Festival successful September, which saw comics including Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, Tom Segura, Louis C.K., Bill Burr, Pete Davidson, Whitney Cummings and much doing stand-up astatine a government-funded festival successful a state accused of imprisoning and torturing activists and journalists. Earlier this year, the Saudi authorities executed journalist Turki al-Jasser.

Aziz Ansari, however, defended his determination to execute astatine the drama festival this twelvemonth connected Jimmy Kimmel Live! earlier this week. “There’s radical implicit determination that don’t hold with the worldly the government’s doing,” helium said. “To ascribe the worst behaviour of the authorities onto those radical is not just … To me, a drama festival felt similar thing that’s pushing things to beryllium much unfastened and to propulsion a dialogue. You person to marque a prime of whether to isolate oregon engage.”

As quality rights experts person pointed out, though, the drama festival — and Soundstorm — are straight sponsored by the Saudi government. HRW besides wrote that the erstwhile was the country’s effort astatine deflecting “attention from its brutal repression of escaped code and different pervasive quality rights violations.”

Soundstorm volition instrumentality spot this twelvemonth Dec. 11-13 successful Banban, Riyadh.