Saudi Arabia’s music scene has gone global, new data from Spotify shows.

Household names like Abdulmajeed Abdullah (essentially Saudi Arabia’s Taylor Swift) and Abadi Al Johar now draw 200,000-300,000 monthly listeners on the platform. Their popularity doesn’t come as a surprise, but what does is that most of the income for Saudi artists comes from abroad: More than 90% of Saudi artist royalties were generated outside the kingdom, led by fans in the US, Brazil, India, and Europe.

The country’s musicians earned more than 13 million riyals ($3.5 million) in royalties last year, double 2022’s total. Local consumption of Saudi music on Spotify is also booming, nearly tripling since 2020.

— Manal Albarakati