Arabiano: 5 Iconic Performances by African Artists on Arab Stages

This feature is a part of a partnership between Rolling Stone MENA and Beyon Al Dana Amphitheatre presenting Tyla’s live debut in Bahrain. Tickets are available for the two shows on December 9 & December 14.

Over the last decade, the cultural traffic between Africa and the Arab world has accelerated, pulsing to a new kind of rhythm – one forged from Afrobeats, amapiano, Afro-fusion, and the modern pop languages of the continent. What was once a handful of tentative tour stops has become a full-blown exchange, with African artists selling out arenas, headlining festivals, and becoming regional fixtures.

This rising presence isn’t just about star power or streaming numbers. It signals a deeper shift: a growing alignment between two regions that have always been connected, yet rarely celebrated their shared musical appetite at this scale. Below, we visit four standout performances – and one highly anticipated debut – that crystalise this evolving story.

Burna Boy: One Africa Music Fest, Dubai (2019)

When Burna Boy took the stage at Festival Arena in 2019, Dubai felt less like a tour stop and more like an extension of Lagos nightlife. He performed with the controlled fire that has become his signature, threading social commentary through swagger, rhythm, and unmistakable presence.

What made the moment so resonant wasn’t merely the crowd’s enthusiasm, but the unmistakable sense that the audience already knew the vocabulary: the call-and-response cadences, the tonal shifts, the emotional temperature Burna brings to stagecraft. His Dubai appearance served as a turning point, illustrating that African artists were no longer cultivating fanbases abroad – they were arriving to find them already waiting.

Wizkid: One Africa Music Fest, Dubai (2019)

Sharing the same bill, Wizkid delivered a performance that felt like a coronation. By 2019, he was already one of the most streamed African artists in the world, but that night in Dubai, he performed not as a global phenomenon passing through, but as an artist whose sound had become part of the city’s musical bloodstream.

The energy in the venue shifted with him, with the crowd surging forward, singing word-for-word, as though the songs were already woven into the architecture. Wizkid’s Dubai set underscored a new reality: Afrobeats was no longer a rising genre, it had become a global dialect, and the Arab world was fully fluent.

Davido: 5IVE Alive Tour, Coca-Cola Arena, Dubai (2025)

Davido’s 2025 headlining show at Dubai’s Coca-Cola Arena was defining. Touring his fifth studio album, he arrived with the ease of an artist whose discography has already travelled far ahead of him.

The show’s intensity – powered by anthems, choreography, and a band performing with the precision of a well-oiled engine – reaffirmed Davido’s command as a live performer. More importantly, it underscored Dubai’s evolving reputation as one of Afrobeats’ most vibrant diasporic capitals. The concert felt like a convergence of generations, continents, and stories coiled into one communal roar.

Tiwa Savage: One Africa Music Fest, Dubai (2019)

Tiwa Savage’s appearance at the same 2019 festival added a vital chapter to the narrative. Her voice, ever agile, smoky, and emotionally precise brought a different texture to the night, reminding audiences that African pop’s expansion isn’t just driven by bombast but by breadth.

Her performance balanced power with poise, grounding the festival in the richness of women’s contributions to contemporary African music. For many in the Dubai audience, it was a moment of recognition that expanded the festival’s palette and affirmed Tiwa’s status as a global standard-bearer for African vocal excellence.

Tyla: Debut at Beyon Al Dana Amphitheatre, Manama, Bahrain (December 9 & 14, 2025)

Few debuts in recent memory carried the anticipation surrounding Tyla’s regional premiere, marked by her first performance at Bahrain’s Beyon Al Dana Amphitheatre last Tuesday, and followed by a second show on the 14th for those who missed out on the first. A venue carved into the desert landscape proved an inspired backdrop for an artist whose music blends the airy sensuality of R&B with South Africa’s rhythmic innovations.

Tyla arrives at a moment when her sound sits at the forefront of global youth culture, and Manama’s growing appetite for African genres makes this performance feel historic. Her Bahrain debut marks a generational milestone: the Gulf welcoming the newest wave of African pop royalty not as guests, but as headliners.

The Significance of This Moment

As African artists continue to expand their reach into Arab markets, the performances themselves tell only part of the story. What’s unfolding is a cultural ecosystem that thrives on exchange. Diasporic communities bring their histories, with Arab audiences responding with curiosity and enthusiasm, while promoters and venues commit, year after year, to booking the continent’s brightest stars.

In return, African musicians are discovering stages that welcome them not as novelties, but as essentials, and as artists whose presence reflects the region’s evolving identity. The Gulf, in particular, has become a unique crossroads: futuristic yet deeply rooted, local yet global, familiar yet open to reinvention.

These performances matter because they symbolise a widening of the world and a breaking of silos that once defined how music travelled. They remind us that rhythm is one of the oldest shared languages between Africa and the Arab world, even if history hasn’t always allowed that story to be told aloud.