Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has re-watched the entire concert of Australian singer Iggy Azalea, expressing satisfaction with the controversial performance.
Thus, MBS ordered Turki Al-Sheikh, head of the General Entertainment Authority in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to hold similar music show in the country in the near future. A huge budget was allocated for the events.
Last week, Australian rapper Iggy Azalea came under fire for controversial lyrics about prophets and asking people to “bow down to a goddess” during her $2 million-cost performance in Saudi Arabia.
Her lyrics were widely condemned for contradicting Islamic values, both inside and outside Saudi Arabia, with the lines “preaching about prophets, it ain't no one man can stop us, bow down to a goddess” generating the biggest backlash.
The performance comes as Saudi Arabia increasingly opens up to entertainment, as part of MBS’s Vision 2030, an effort to diversify the kingdom away from oil and welcome more tourists.
Shortly after leaving the Kingdom, the pop star has returned serves with a string of tweets, saying that Turki Al-Sheikh well knows of the play list before the concert.
Private sources earlier revealed that MBS has ordered Turki Al-Sheikh to produce entertainment series in Saudi Arabia with the help of pornographic stars.
The initial budget allocated for the project is estimated at about $3 billion, the sources added.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia established the General Entertainment Authority within Vision 2030 – the crown prince’s plan to diversify its economy beyond oil, which accounts for more than half of the government’s revenue.
Among its goals was to almost double household spending on cultural and entertainment activities within the kingdom. Riyadh is now seeing more than $64 billion in entertainment investment, with a significant proportion of that going to the live music industry.
MBS's Vision 2030 prides itself on offering “world-class entertainment” and says that it has organized up to 3,800 entertainment events in the country, attended by more than 80 million people.
MBS had earlier spent one billion dollars on entertainment events throughout the Kingdom during the past two months.
The sources pointed out that popular singers and dance groups from European countries received huge amounts of money to hold concerts in the Kingdom and to promote it as a touristic destination.
Long known for its ultra-conservative mores, the kingdom has embarked on a wide-ranging program of social and economic reforms driven by its crown prince.
The country that has been better known as the birthplace of Islam than a rave capital has gone through a tremendous makeover since MBS took control of the everyday running of the kingdom in 2017.
