Coldplay welcomed Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna on stage for their historic Glastonbury 2024 headline slot. The British band, led by Chris Martin, played the Pyramid Stage on Saturday (29 June), one night after Dua Lipa impressed crowds with her very own headline set – despite a sound issue with the BBC broadcast . On Saturday (29 June), with their fifth Glastonbury headline slot that The Independent called a “spectacle of a lifetime” , the band become the act to have headlined the most number of times , and invited several guests to join them , including Little Simz, Laura Mvula and Back to the Future star Michael J Fox.
One singer who joined Martin and his bandmates for an extended period of time was Elyanna, an experimental pop star known for merging Arabic music with Latin rhythms. Elyanna performed Coldplay’s 2019 song “Arabesque” alongside Femi Kuti as well as “We Pray”, a new collaboration between the band, Little Simz and Burna Boy. The 22-year-old singer, who shot to fame aged 15, is the daughter of a Palestinian poet, whose father is a Palestinian poet and singer and whose mother is a pianist from Chile.
Elyanna moved to San Diego, California in 2017 to pursue her musical career, and gained fame after posting covers on her Instagram page. She was eventually discovered by by Grammy-winner Nasri Atweh. The singer, who recently performed a sell-out show in London venue KOKO, is signed to Universal Arabic Music – and made history as the first arti.
