Recently, MDLBEAST — one of the region's biggest entertainment companies and a dream destination for many local artists — released a documentary tracing the rise of Saudi Arabia's modern music scene.

The film, “CUE: The Untold Story of Saudi's Music Scene”, explores a question that might surprise many outsiders: if Saudi Arabia's music boom seems to have arrived so suddenly in 2019, what was happening before then?

We watched the documentary, came away both impressed and surprised, and sat down with MDLBEAST's Chief Creative Officer, Baloo, to talk about it. Together, we will use the film as a guide through the story of a country whose musical culture spent decades largely out of the global spotlight before emerging as one of the region's most influential creative forces.

And one more thing: we expected a lesson in music history. We didn't expect to get emotional. But once the story becomes about people, not dates, it is hard not to.

Does the name Soundstorm ring a bell for you?

For many people outside Saudi Arabia, the answer is simple: it is the Middle East's biggest music festival, created and organised by MDLBEAST. A massive event packed with international stars, huge stages and crowds that now number in the hundreds of thousands. Impressive, yes, but hardly surprising given Saudi Arabia's growing presence on the global cultural stage.

For Saudis, however, Soundstorm means something entirely different.

It is not just a festival. It became a symbol of a much bigger shift taking place across the country — one that extended far beyond music itself.

That is where the documentary begins.

While Soundstorm sits at the centre of the narrative, the film is ultimately told through the people who lived through that period of change and helped shape Saudi Arabia's music scene along the way.

Among them are Baloo, one of MDLBEAST's founding members and its Chief Creative Officer, Saudi duo DISH DASH, who went from local underground events to major international festival stages, and Vinyl Mode, one of the pioneers of the Kingdom's electronic music scene and a key figure in the creation of Soundstorm itself.

When we say that the Saudi music scene was "closed", we are missing an important piece of context. What exactly does closed mean? That international artists couldn't perform? That women couldn't become DJs? That mixed-gender events were prohibited?

The reality is slightly more complicated.

We often think of Saudi Arabia as a country that remained closed until around 2019. A more accurate way of putting it, however, is that the Kingdom entered a far more conservative period after 1979 and remained that way for decades. And that changes the story considerably.

In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, Saudi Arabia had cinemas, concerts, theatre productions, television performances by Arab stars, and a visible music culture. In 1962, the Kingdom even hosted what is considered its first modern musical concert featuring instruments.

Then came 1979, a turning point that pushed Saudi Arabia into a far more conservative period, one that would shape public life for decades.

One of the defining features of that era was the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — better known as the religious police. Their role was to enforce public morality according to the Kingdom's interpretation of Islamic law: preventing unrelated men and women from mixing in public, monitoring dress codes, and breaking up gatherings considered inappropriate.

Music itself wasn't illegal. But public musical life became increasingly restricted. You wouldn't hear music in cafés or restaurants. You couldn't simply play music in public. Concerts were rare. Music never disappeared — it simply moved behind closed doors: to weddings, private compounds, and underground gatherings.

And if that sounds dramatic, many Saudis would probably tell you the reality felt even more so.

The restrictions were not always about explicit laws. Often, it was the uncertainty. You never quite knew where the line was, whether an event might attract unwanted attention, or what consequences could follow. For many people, that uncertainty was enough to keep music out of public view.

The culture never disappeared. It simply moved indoors.

The turning point came in 2016 under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, when the powers of the religious police were significantly reduced. They could no longer arrest or detain people and largely became an advisory body.

The reforms that followed came quickly: in 2017, women gained the right to drive; in 2018, cinemas returned after decades of absence and international artists began performing openly in the Kingdom.

The culmination of that cultural shift was Soundstorm. To outsiders, it looked like a music festival. For many Saudis, it felt like something much bigger: the public arrival of a culture that had spent decades largely behind closed doors. A cultural turning point. Some would even call it a revolution.

The historical context matters. But let's be honest: history rarely becomes real until it is attached to the people who lived through it.

That is exactly what CUE does. Rather than focusing solely on festivals and industry growth, it follows the musicians, DJs and creatives who experienced the transformation firsthand — people who went from performing behind closed doors to standing on some of the region's biggest stages.

And what were those realities? Family disapproval. Constant self-doubt. The challenge of pursuing something you loved without knowing whether it would ever be accepted or taken seriously.

These small stories are what make the bigger one matter. Together, they answer an important question: how did an underground scene survive long enough to become an international movement?

They also explain why so many of those featured in the film became emotional after the first Soundstorm. It was never just about a festival finally happening. It was proof that years of persistence, uncertainty and belief had been worth it.