Dua Lipa’s Sunny Hill Festival aiming to change Kosovo’s image

Throughout the summer season within the UK there’s a music pageant just about each week someplace within the nation.

Highlights embody the summer season kick off with Radio 1’s Massive Weekend in Might, Glastonbury’s dominance in June, Latitude in July and a Studying and Leeds Financial institution Vacation bonanza in August.

Some may argue British music lovers are spoilt for selection.

In some components of the world there’s no choice to bop along with your mates in a area whereas holding a lukewarm beer, attending to grips with dry shampoo, shoddy cellphone sign and chants of ‘Oggy, oggy, oggy, oi, oi, oi’.

That’s the place Dua Lipa and her dad Dukagjin wished to vary issues by launching Sunny Hill pageant within the household’s dwelling metropolis of Pristina, Kosovo – part of the world few worldwide artists toured.

“I need to change the rhetoric of what individuals take into consideration Kosovo and it being war-torn,” Dua defined earlier this yr.

“Once I was residing in Kosovo, not one of the artists I wished to see ever got here down.”

Dua was born within the UK however moved to Pristina as a toddler after a warfare within the late Nineties left greater than 10,000 lifeless, as Kosovo fought for independence from Serbia.

It declared it in 2008, though some nations – together with Serbia – refuse to recognise it.

“Reinstating the nation took extra years than we’d appreciated,” Dukagjin says.

He says it was “all the time a dream” to have one thing like Sunny Hill in Pristina, after working within the stay music occasions trade for years earlier than Dua made it as a global pop star.

In 2018, 10 years after Kosovo declared independence, Sunny Hill launched – headlined by Dua as tens of 1000’s celebrated one in every of their very own making the large time.

However it was tougher then to persuade different international artists to play and the next yr the New Guidelines star turned to her pals Miley Cyrus and Calvin Harris to ask them to prime the invoice, who each carried out within the area for the primary time.

That modified how the pageant was seen by different acts and their administration groups.

“We actually do punch method above our weight with regards to the line-up,” Dukagjin tells BBC Information.

“Once I speak to the artists about coming I say: ‘Look you may not have the tequila you need in your rider, however belief me you’ll have the most effective sound gear cash should buy’.”

His newest knowledge estimates that about 40% of holiday makers have been from exterior Kosovo – noting that can be strongly influenced by the nation’s diaspora as these with household connections right here carry pals with them.

Some had travelled as removed from Chicago within the US to see artists like Bebe Rexha, Burna Boy, Stormzy, and DJ Snake headline the primary stage final weekend.

Groove Armada, Black Espresso and Griff have been all additionally on the invoice.

Kosovo is assumed to have Europe’s youngest inhabitants as greater than half are estimated to be beneath the age of 30.

Journey restrictions, till earlier this yr, meant native musicians didn’t have the pliability to play in different components of the continent.

“It’s not that straightforward to be a musician,” explains singer La Fazani, who’s performed Sunny Hill a number of instances.

“The one method you may really make good earnings is by taking part in nightclubs.”

He lately received an enormous TV present within the nation however says with out Sunny Hill he wouldn’t get to play stay to a crowd of 1000’s, and hopes the Lipa visitor checklist may enhance his profession.

“Sunny Hill is likely one of the biggest mills of a constructive picture of Kosovo,” he says.

“There’s many worldwide label individuals right here and I hope I may need caught the attention of somebody who may like what I do.”

Contemporary from seeing his daughter headline one of many greatest festivals on the earth, Dukagjin says “Glastonbury is one in every of a form” and is aware of it will likely be exhausting for his undertaking Sunny Hill, which occurred for the primary time on its new everlasting website to accommodate the rising viewers, to achieve a standing like that.

Though, he says trade pals like Coachella proprietor Paul Tollett say the undertaking reminds him of Glastonbury within the Eighties, and there are plans to make it greater than a stay music pageant.

“I really like artists who spend a day or two longer in Pristina and have an opportunity to fulfill native artists and share concepts.

“And for them to rub shoulders with individuals within the music trade, and hopefully subsequent yr we are able to create a motion with some workshops,” Dukagjin says.

You possibly can be taught extra about Sunny Hill Competition and the way Kosovo is making an attempt to vary its picture on Enterprise Each day.

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