Dua Lipa’s Sunny Hill Festival Aims to Change Kosovo’s Image

During the summer in the UK, almost every week there is a music festival taking place somewhere in the country.

Highlights include kicking off the summer with Radio 1’s Big Weekend in May, dominating Glastonbury in June, Latitude in July and the Reading and Leeds Bank Holiday bonanza in August.

Some people argue that British music lovers have too much choice.

In some parts of the world, you can’t dance and chat with your friends in a field while holding a warm beer, washing your hair dry, listening to a faint phone ring and shouting ‘Oggy, oggy, oggy, oi, oi, oi’.

That’s where Dua Lipa and her father, Dukagjin, wanted to change things up by hosting the Sunny Hill festival in the family’s hometown of Pristina, Kosovo – a place few international artists have ever toured.

“I want to change the way people think about Kosovo and this war-torn country,” Dua explained earlier this year.

“When I lived in Kosovo, no artist I wanted to see came here to perform.”

Dua was born in Britain but moved to Pristina as a child after the war in the late 1990s left more than 10,000 people dead as Kosovo fought for independence from Serbia.

It has declared it was in 2008although some countries – including Serbia – refuse to recognize it.

“Rebuilding the country took many more years than we wanted,” Dukagjin said.

Having a place like Sunny Hill in Pristina “has always been a dream”, he said, after years working in the live music events industry before Dua became an international pop star.

In 2018, 10 years after Kosovo declared independence, Sunny Hill was launched – with Dua performing as tens of thousands celebrated one of their own people achieving greatness.

But convincing other global artists to perform was more difficult back then, and the following year the New Rules star asked her friends Miley Cyrus and Calvin Harris to perform, both of whom were performing in the region for the first time.

That changed the way other artists and their management teams viewed the festival.

“We really have the upper hand when it comes to the squad,” Dukagjin told BBC News.

“When I talk to artists about coming here, I say, ‘You might not have the tequila you want, but trust me, you’re going to have the best sound equipment money can buy.'”

His latest data estimates that around 40% of visitors come from outside Kosovo – noting that this will be heavily influenced by the country’s diaspora, as people with family ties here often bring friends along.

Some people traveled from Chicago, USA to see artists like Bebe Rexha, Burna Boy, Stormzy and DJ Snake perform on the main stage last weekend.

Groove Armada, Black Coffee and Griff also appeared on the show.

Kosovo is said to have the youngest population in Europe as more than half of the population is under 30 years old.

Travel restrictions, until earlier this yearThis means that local musicians do not have the flexibility to play music elsewhere on the continent.

“Being a musician is not easy,” explains singer La Fazani, who has performed at Sunny Hill several times.

“The only way you can make a good income is to play in nightclubs.”

He recently won a major TV show in the country but said without Sunny Hill he would not be able to perform live in front of crowds of thousands and hopes Lipa’s guest list could boost his career.

“Sunny Hill is one of the organizations that creates the most positive image of Kosovo,” he said.

“There are a lot of international celebrities here and I hope I can attract the attention of someone who likes what I do.”

Having just seen his daughter headline one of the world’s biggest festivals, Dukagjin said “Glastonbury is the only festival” and knew it would be difficult for his Sunny Hill project, which was being held for the first time at a new permanent venue to attract a growing audience, to achieve such success.

However, he said industry friends like Coachella owner Paul Tollett said the project reminded him of Glastonbury in the 1980s and plans to turn it into something more than a live music festival.

“I like artists to spend an extra day or two in Pristina to have the opportunity to meet local artists and share ideas.

“And to get them to interact with people in the music industry, and hopefully next year we can create a movement through some workshops,” Dukagjin said.

You can learn more about the Sunny Hill Festival and how Kosovo is trying to change its image on Business Daily.

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