“I am always very, very busy,” DJ Viva exclaims breathlessly as she walks through her front door after a day filled with meetings. “There’s never a slow time for me, honestly. I’m trying to squeeze in a summer vacation, but things keep coming up!”
As Saudi Arabia’s first-ever female music producer, DJ Viva has places to be and moves to
make. Having aided the seismic creative shift that has been coursing through the Kingdom, Viva – who prefers to be referred to by her stage name – is all about enabling women to take centre stage in the arts. In five short years, she swapped books for a DJ headset, side-stepping a successful career in academia for the decks, bright lights, and roaring crowds of dance music. She is, in short, pure girl power.
Born in Guyana, South America and raised in Edmonton, Canada, the thirtysomething musician and mother, who speaks so calmly and eloquently, explains that she’s now based between Jeddah and Riyadh, having moved to the Kingdom aged 18. Earlier today, she had been managing contracts for various musicians across the nation via her events company, EntertainmenTen, and later; “I was meeting with a group of high-end lounges in Jeddah, and working on entertainment solutions for them,” she reels off coolly, as if this what everyone’s day-to-day looks like.
It’s a long way to come for someone who didn’t believe she had “a single creative bone” in her body. Prior to her DJing career, Viva taught at the University of Business and Technology (UBT) in Jeddah, having obtained a Master’s degree in Business Administration and a PhD in Organisational Development. “It even surprises me!” she smiles. “Sometimes I get people who message after my sets asking if I taught them at UBT. You could literally draw a line down the middle of my two worlds, but I do feel like my experience in academia and business have transferred to my career in music production and DJing. They’ve fused together.”
Jacket, trousers: Noon by Noor
Shoes: Jimmy Choo
It was in 2018, when the entertainment industry began opening up, that Viva’s career trajectory dramatically shifted. “The music world was no longer underground and very secretive. Women’s empowerment and the end of segregation really changed the country.” The turning point came after attending one of the first public music events in the country, where the likes of Tiesto played. At the after-party, a musician challenged Viva to get into DJing. Her response? “No! I told that guy, ‘Dude, I am a doctor, do I look like I could ever be a DJ’? I didn’t look down on it at all, but he challenged me to download the software, and, you know, I did, and I realised how complex it is. It took me one month to just gain the technical skills before I grasped the creative side. Then I released one SoundCloud mix, and it was received so well that within the next six months… Let’s just say I forgot abo out academia completely! My whole life became about music.”
One thing led to another, and eventually Viva landed her first DJ residency at Nozomi Beach in Sunset Resort, Al Khobar. By the time she returned to Jeddah, she was getting calls from “everywhere” asking her to start residencies or play for them. “It kind of snowballed from there,” she recalls, which is perhaps an understatement. In the years since, DJ Viva has become the only woman in the country to play the role of Entertainment Director for two prominent events groups. She’s also opened for David Guetta, played nationally at MDLBEAST Soundstorm, internationally at Cannes’ Les Plages Electronique, launched her own cosmetics brand, appeared in the Netflix film Basma, and founded EntertainmenTen, which boasts Sensation Art Gallery. The two-day, luxury event is now in its third iteration, and hosts live visual arts like painting, sculpting and graffiti while some of the country’s most accomplished musicians and DJs spin tracks. Oh, and let’s not forget that Viva is also a certified aerial and pole dance artist. Phew!
Jacket: Kristina Fidelskaya
Top: Erika Cavalliniat THAT Concept Store
But back to the music. Although DJ Viva’s sound is firmly within the techno universe, she’s
keen to stress that it remains feminine. “It’s dark and sultry, you know, that late-night party vibe that you get after midnight?” Traversing tech and progressive house, DJ Viva brings slick tracks to those who want an elevated party experience in Jeddah and Riyadh. She is perhaps a key example of a new sound that has been emerging from the Kingdom of late: “Every culture tends to create a fusion of local sounds with the more popular stuff. So, of course there’s hip-hop in Arabic music, but myself and other artists have started fusing Arabic instruments with popular sounds and then with techno and R&B. I’m actually set to release new music with MDLBEAST next month, and one track is a collaboration with the singer Asayel. We’re going for a very unique fusion, combining traditional Oud with R&B and lyrics in both Arabic and English.”
While Viva is a tour de force in Saudi Arabia – committed as she is to espouse that “girls can do it too” – she’s also faced her share of challenges. Case in point, other people’s misconceptions. It’s clearly very raw and affecting for the artist, who pauses before saying, “People think that because you’re a DJ, you’re a party animal who is living a superficial lifestyle. That’s not true, the majority of DJs I know, especially the girls, have families and are educated. They have their own businesses, fashion lines and events companies. For example, my friend DJ Cosmicat is a dentist. It shatters me a bit. There is a person that I’d brought into my life. I’d invite her to all my events… Everything. But I wasn’t aware that I was being looked at through a negative lens.”
While attitudes can remain slow to shift, things have changed considerably for women in Saudi since Viva arrived as a freshly minted adult in the Kingdom. Recalling her late adolescence, she explains how things were “completely different to where we are now. Women were covered from head to toe, even having nail polish on our fingernails was considered really out there. Segregation was at its highest and music was unheard of in public places. Now, it’s like being in two different countries. A lot of people on the outside world think that women here are oppressed, but we’re not.”
It’s apt that we keep returning to the idea of a new collective voice, considering how the women of the nation have recently found and are amplifying theirs. As such, Viva wants to spotlight the overwhelmingly positive response she’s had as a female DJ. “The majority of people are very supportive of us,” she continues, referencing her tight-knit community. “Man, I was just at [DJ] Cosmicat’s house yesterday and we were talking about all of this stuff and how much it’s changed! The girls have to stick together and stay aligned. We need to keep an awareness about who we are, what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it. We also have to remind each other that we’re not less than, despite what certain people choose to say about us. We really need that support.”
Jacket: AjeAt Etoile
Skirt: 1309 Studios
Earrings and shoes: & Other Stories
On the topic of support, it’s critical that the Music Commission and the Ministry of Culture
continue to guide musicians like DJ Viva as the country’s burgeoning music industry continues to find its feet amongst the international crowd. After pledging to discover, develop and empower musical talent since the easing of restrictions in 2018, Viva explains that the government has achieved all that and more…. “The support from [the government] has been incredible locally and nationally, especially for female DJs. The empowerment, the programmes, and the incentives we have are amazing. The Music Commission has placed us in a very prominent position, where we are able to develop ourselves. We have music hubs in all major cities, and there’s pretty much everything from music production to lessons if you want to learn how to play instruments or how to sing. But I do think that we all need to take the initiative to utilise all the resources that they’re providing for us.”
If that didn’t scream ‘progress’ enough, then how about this: not only is there reportedly parity between male and female musicians in the Kingdom, but Viva says that right now bookers actually prefer female DJs. “We’re in a time where we are prioritised over male acts. A month ago, I played for an event that was an all-female DJ line-up and I would say 90 per cent of the crowd was male. Women did attend the event, but they stood on the outskirts. Maybe that’s one of the challenges we have when it comes to events, crowd management. When people are partying, they’re dancing and moving around. Women, especially here, don’t like to be touched, squished, or bumped into. We need our own space within a crowd, and I do feel like this is an issue.”
Dress: Abadia
Dress worn as Jacket: Huishan Zhang at Etoile La Boutique
But as DJ Viva becomes more of a prominent figure in the Kingdom, she has her sights on a bigger, more developed musical landscape. “I want to see a richer music production industry,” she adds. “I want to see lots of different music labels that we can throw our music onto. I want to see really good music and artist management emerge. I’ve spoken to a lot of other artists about this, and we’re all facing the challenge of finding good managers – many of us have tried different agencies and nothing works. In other countries, there are teams behind the artist that can help and build them out as individuals.”
Industry improvements aside, it’s clear that DJ Viva, alongside the music scene she cares so much about, is advancing at breakneck speed. It only seems right to ask her about what wise words she’d give to someone looking to pursue a career in music. “What I would say to anyone out there is that it’s totally okay to indulge yourself in the creative realm. There’s no need for self-imposed limitations because when you’re being creative, you’re taking a part of yourself and giving it to the world. We have access to pretty much everything now, and we can have more than one passion. Just because I’m a DJ, doesn’t mean that I can’t be an aerialist or a pole
dancer. We have limited time on Earth, and now is the time to do it.”
Her resounding message to the women of Saudi Arabia? That they can have it all, in the sense of melding tradition and culture with ambition and creativity. “We are the new identity of the country! I mean we just had Alicia Keys play here, that should tell you something. Women can do whatever they want, especially when it comes to expressing what they love.” Cue, applause.
Dress: Abadia
Shoes: Prada
Earrings: Mango
Talent: DJ Viva
Photography: Amina Zaher @aminazaher
Styling: Seher Khan @seherkhanp
Hair Stylist: Sarah Sequeria @ssequeiramakeup
Make Up Artist: Sarah Sequeria @ssequeiramakeup
Senior Producer: Steff Hawker @steff.producer
Production Coordinator: Chloe Christodoulou @chloe_christodoulou
Styling Assistant: Omnia Eldraib
Photography Assistant: Ahmed Taha @taha98ahmed
Special thanks to Saudi Music Hub Jeddah