Who Gets to Take Arabic Music Global?

One Slot, One Office

On June 12, at the opening ceremony of the biggest World Cup ever staged, Arabic pop had a milestone moment: Elyanna, the Palestinian-Chilean singer from Nazareth, performing "Illuminate" with Jessie Reyez in Toronto. She was, per FIFA's own soundtrack, the only artist representing the MENA region. The credits tell a second story. "Illuminate" was released through SALXCO, Universal Arabic Music, and Def Jam. Elyanna was discovered and developed by SALXCO's founder. Among the songwriters: Massari, a SALXCO artist of two decades.

That founder is Wassim "Sal" Slaiby, and the pattern raises a question this article sets out to examine rather than settle: how did the lane connecting Arabic music to the Western mainstream come to run so consistently through one set of companies — and what does that mean for the music? Two things are true at once. Arabic pop as a whole does not depend on Los Angeles; the region's biggest stars have never needed it. And the specific route to Western stages, labels, and playlists has, over the past five years, visibly concentrated. Arabic pop has two economies. This is an account of the border between them.

The Economy That Doesn't Need the West

First, the larger one. The Arab world's class-A stars operate a mature industry that owes the West nothing. Nancy Ajram releases through her own label, in2Musica. The Rotana system, Gulf concert seasons, pan-Arab television, and platforms like Anghami sustain the Lebanese and Egyptian A-list — Elissa, Wael Kfoury, Assala, Angham — at a scale measured in stadium bookings and nine-figure YouTube counts, without a single Western intermediary. Amr Diab became the region's most decorated artist on regional infrastructure alone. Any account that casts one Los Angeles office as the gatekeeper of this economy would simply be inaccurate.

The regional economy monetizes Arab audiences, at home and in the diaspora. The crossover economy sells Arab music to everyone else. It is the second, much younger lane where the concentration is found.

The Crossover Infrastructure

Slaiby, born in Lebanon and raised in Canada, built CP Records with the Lebanese-Canadian singer Massari in the 2000s, then rose through the American industry as The Weeknd's manager and co-founder of XO Records. His management company, SALXCO, lists a roster of more than 45 acts that has included Doja Cat, Swedish House Mafia, Metro Boomin, and Bebe Rexha — alongside much of the prominent Arab diaspora: French Montana, Belly, Ali Gatie, Massari.

In 2021, Universal Music Group and Republic Records launched Universal Arabic Music with Slaiby as founder and CEO — the first Arabic-focused label inside a Western major, with a stated mission of taking the region's music global. Its first signing was Issam Alnajjar, the Amman teenager behind "Hadal Ahbek." Its most developed project has been Elyanna, taken from SoundCloud covers to Coachella to the World Cup stage.

The Mohamed Ramadan case shows how the two economies interact. An Egyptian superstar with his own regional machine — films, arenas, a billion streams — Ramadan needed nothing from anyone at home. When the target became the American market, he signed with SALXCO for management, and the vehicle was "ARABI," a 2024 single with Massari and Future built for US hip-hop audiences. Even artists with maximal regional leverage, in other words, have used the same route west — because, at present, it is the most established one there is.

What Concentration Selects For

Why does it matter which office the route runs through? The concern, voiced most often by artists and observers in the region's independent scenes, is about selection effects. The crossover's recent successes share a recognizable profile: bilingual hooks, diaspora biographies that translate cleanly for Western press, contemporary American production. Critics read that pattern as a filter — any single organization optimizing for the Western market will rationally favor what that market already understands, which narrows the range of Arab music the world gets to hear. We have reported on the industry's terms for Arab identity and identity-first marketing; by this reading, a concentrated crossover is where such terms get applied.

The counter-reading is that this profile reflects audience demand, not gatekeeping — that bilingual, diaspora-fronted pop crosses over because it is what crossover audiences respond to, and no office can force the global market to love what it doesn't. Both readings are consistent with the visible facts. What is not in dispute is that independent scenes, from Ramallah's BLTNM outward, have chosen to build parallel infrastructure rather than route through the existing lane — a choice that is itself part of the story.

The Case for the System

The strongest version of the defense deserves stating. Before Slaiby, no Western major had built dedicated Arabic-music infrastructure at all; the vacuum he filled was the industry's own neglect. The careers are real: Alnajjar went from a bedroom in Amman to international co-signs; Elyanna from covers to the largest television audience on earth. When Variety asked in 2022 whether Universal and Slaiby could take Arabic music global, subsequent years have answered largely in the affirmative. By every public account, he spent two decades opening doors that were shut. Concentration, on this view, is not a design flaw but a first chapter — markets usually start with one pioneer and diversify later.

Meanwhile, on the Publishing Side

A separate development — unrelated to Slaiby — is unfolding in song ownership. US publisher Reservoir and its MENA partner PopArabia have been acquiring stakes in the region's catalogs, most prominently Nancy Ajram's: her owned back catalog and, notably, her future works. The deal reads as the regional A-list monetizing its leverage from a position of strength — Ajram commanded a landmark price without any crossover involvement. It also means Western capital now sits on both sides of Arabic music: brokering global performance access on one side, accumulating the songs themselves on the other. How that shapes the options of the independent artist is a question the next few years will answer.

The Open Questions

None of this requires a villain, and the regional industry certainly needs no rescue. The questions the summer of 2026 leaves open are structural ones. Why, five years after Universal Arabic Music launched, has no second Western major built a comparable lane? Why has no regional powerhouse — a Rotana, an Anghami — built its own direct bridge to Western audiences rather than licensing through existing ones? And as long as the answer to both is "not yet," how comfortable should any music culture be with a single, well-run checkpoint as its principal route to the world? The most likely resolutions are the historical ones: either competition arrives, or the traffic finds other ways across. The undergrounds, notably, are already experimenting with both.

Key Facts

• Elyanna was the only MENA-region artist on the FIFA World Cup 2026 soundtrack; she performed "Illuminate" with Jessie Reyez at the June 12 opening ceremony in Toronto. The single was released through SALXCO, Universal Arabic Music, and Def Jam.

• The regional Arabic pop industry operates independently of this system: Nancy Ajram releases through her own in2Musica label, and the Rotana/Gulf-television economy sustains the Lebanese and Egyptian A-list without Western intermediaries.

• Universal Arabic Music launched in 2021 under UMG and Republic Records with Wassim "Sal" Slaiby — The Weeknd's manager and SALXCO founder — as CEO; its first signing was Issam Alnajjar.

• SALXCO's 45-plus roster has included French Montana, Belly, Ali Gatie, and Massari; Egyptian superstar Mohamed Ramadan signed with SALXCO for management ahead of the US-targeted Future collaboration "ARABI."

• Reservoir and PopArabia acquired Nancy Ajram's owned catalog and future works — a separate consolidation on the publishing side, unrelated to Slaiby's companies.