Club Heshik Beshik on May 9, 2025. (Credit: Pictures by Renee Davis/Collage by Jaimee Lee Haddad/L'Orient Today)
Every two weeks, partygoers flock to KED Beirut to dance to Arabic pop music — a dance and music scene many wouldn’t have imagined gravitating towards just a few years ago.“Even my classmates from my old Jesuit school love it,” says Peter Mhanna, 28, founder of the biweekly party Club Heshik Beshik (CHB). “One time they told me, ‘C’est trop nawre, j’adore!’ [‘This is so nawre, I love it’].” Mhanna, better known by his DJ name Mrsychotic, was one of many performers who believed in the space’s potential long before the crowds followed.“Before the crisis, there really wasn’t a culture of Arabic pop in Beirut’s party scene,” says Lary, 39, known as Lary BS, who has worked in nightlife since 2012. “When I’d play ‘oriental music,’ it was always marketed as a ‘specialty’ night. Now it’s part of the zeitgeist.”Since then, the tide has turned....
Every two weeks, partygoers flock to KED Beirut to dance to Arabic pop music — a dance and music scene many wouldn’t have imagined gravitating towards just a few years ago.“Even my classmates from my old Jesuit school love it,” says Peter Mhanna, 28, founder of the biweekly party Club Heshik Beshik (CHB). “One time they told me, ‘C’est trop nawre, j’adore!’ [‘This is so nawre, I love it’].” Mhanna, better known by his DJ name Mrsychotic, was one of many performers who believed in the space’s potential long before the crowds followed.“Before the crisis, there really wasn’t a culture of Arabic pop in Beirut’s party scene,” says Lary, 39, known as Lary BS, who has worked in nightlife since 2012. “When I’d play ‘oriental music,’ it was always marketed as a ‘specialty’ night. Now it’s part of...