How country music is taking over the world | Music | DW

Polish your boots, get out your plaid flannel shirt from the back of your closet, and dust off your Stetson — we’re off to a country music festival. But this isn’t Texas or Tennessee, but rather the faded UK seaside resort of Blackpool, which is hosting the 2021 British Country Music Festival from September 3-5, and visitors from all around the country and way beyond are expected to attend.

The typically American music genre is celebrating a global revival, with events all around Europe — even in Germany — giving it a new lease on life. This is, of course, pre-COVID; but with the gradual easing of restrictions, country fans around the globe are excited to get back on the horse.

“The thing about country music that speaks to people is the songwriting,” Milly Olykan, VP of International Relations & Development at the Country Music Association (CMA) in Nashville, Tennessee, told DW.

“People have realized that country music isn’t about geography,” says Baylen Leonard, a country music broadcaster based in London. “It’s about storytelling and emotion.”

Skyline of Nashville

Nashville remains the capital of country music worldwide — but the sound is being exported abroad more than ever before

‘The perfect storm’

Olykan says the focus of her work is “to shift perceptions about country music. For example, it’s not only older people who listen to country. It’s young people. And the audiences have got younger over the years.”

Milly Olykan portrait

Milly Olykan has been helping country music gain global recognition for over a decade

Revolution Magnificence: ‘Building a British world wide elegance brand’

You may well not nonetheless have listened to of Revolution Magnificence and even much less so its co-founder and resourceful heart Adam Minto. But, if he has his way, that will soon adjust. 

Tomorrow, he launches the business he commenced eight many years ago on the London Stock Exchange with a benefit billed at shut to £500million. And that is only the hottest phase of his plan, he says. 

‘I truly consider we are doing a little something incredibly distinctive. I imagine we can build a international natural beauty organization to obstacle the huge fellas – providers that have constantly been there and that normally purchase firms like us.’ 

Versatile: Revolution¿s Adam Minto is already selling in 100 countries

Functional: Revolution’s Adam Minto is now offering in 100 nations around the world

Offering in extra than 100 nations currently, Minto – who is also chief executive – states he is shrugged off techniques from L’Oreal, Revlon, Unilever and Coty in an hard work to keep unbiased. 

‘Every brand name at some point sells out to all those multinationals. What Revolution is striving to do for the purchaser, for the organization, for our group, is to present a constructive perspective of the splendor field and do what most organizations do not get the opportunity to do. 

‘I’ve been making, creating, developing items for the massive splendor models all my daily life. But I felt the sector experienced become elitist. That is not intended to be controversial. But the sector experienced a terrible graphic – only applied products, retouched even attractive persons

‘Divas’ at the Arab World Institute: Singers Who Took Center Phase

PARIS — The diva sings of adore and unmitigated lust. Dressed in a scarlet night robe with her hair pulled substantial, she cries out to her beloved, longs for a evening of timeless enthusiasm and yearns for the sunshine not to increase.

The vocalist in the 1969 concert video is Umm Kulthum: the Arab world’s best 20th-century performer, quite possibly the most effective-recognized Egyptian lady considering that Cleopatra and the star of the exhibition “Divas” at the Institut du Monde Arabe, or Arab Globe Institute, in Paris.

The clearly show, which operates by Sept. 26, is a richly illustrated flashback to the time period involving the 1920s and the 1970s. It portrays unveiled and openly voluptuous ladies accomplishing on stage and screen with no anxiety of censorship or spiritual condemnation, and feminists, political activists and groundbreaking impresarios experiencing down the patriarchy.

Moreover costumes and jewellery, passports and posters, album addresses and significant-heeled footwear, website visitors get to check out footage of woman performers wiggling their hips in mesmerizing moves and posing on the beach front in hot trousers. The all round photo contrasts sharply with present-working day Western perceptions of the Arab world as a position where girls are veiled from top rated to toe and silenced by all-strong males.

“The exhibition knocks down a fair amount of clichés and preconceived strategies about this part of the earth. Ladies really occupied centre phase, embodied modernity and have been not at all absent from history,” mentioned Élodie Bouffard, the exhibition’s