With the live music programme Beats on the Beach kicking off tomorrow night, more than 20 international musicians – from South Korea to Newfoundland, Canada – will hit Abu Dhabi's Corniche for four days of free concert performances. Designed for the masses to offset the paid-for Abu Dhabi Grand Prix gigs on Yas Island, the evenings will span genres including hip-hop, calypso, rock, folk, R&B and dance.
All of which excites the opening night's headliner, Wyclef Jean.
"I have always been driven by different rhythms and cultures since I was kid," said Jean, during a phone interview from New York. "I have always tried to make music that is international."
The political hip-hop artist suffered a failed presidential bid in Haiti last year. He says the experience – which also saw him survive a shooting attempt – only strengthened his resolve to represent his impoverished nation through song and the ballot box. He plans to use his time in the UAE to benefit the Caribbean nation.
"I really feel for Haiti to progress in the right way it has to reach out to the Middle East," he said. "We need to reach out to partners who understand and are sympathetic of the struggle."
This sort of inclusive outlook is at the heart of Jean's songwriting. Through five solo recordings, not to mention two albums with his former group The Fugees, Jean was mashing genres before the term became hip.
On any given album, there are songs where Jean spits politically charged lyrics alongside those where he croons tender acoustic odes. His choice of collaborating artists also runs the gamut of styles through dancehall's Elephant Man, the Nashville crooner Kenny Rogers and the dance group The Prodigy to The New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the soul legend Patti LaBelle.
While going down the eclectic route may not have been the fast lane to commercial success, Jean says his varied fan base proves his all-encompassing musical message has been worthwhile.
"The thing about Wyclef music is that it's about discovery," he said. "That's a why a Wyclef fan can be from eight years old to a grandma."
The South Korean performers Seo In Young and Nine Muses also hope to break cultural barriers with separate performances at Beats on the Beach, tomorrow night and Thursday night respectively.
In Young and Nine Muses represent the emerging sparkly face of K-Pop; a giddy musical hybrid of dance, electro-pop, hip-hop and rock with lyrics sung in both Korean and English.
With social media and YouTube, the genre has managed to grow from domestic beginnings in the early 1990s to become a rival to the Japanese music industry – traditionally the Asian powerhouse – with fans stretching across the Pacific Rim as well as mainland China.
Where aspiring pop stars in the West use American Idol-type shows as an avenue to gain entry into the industry, South Korea makes an industry out of creating pop idols.
Instead of scouring live venues, some major South Korean pop labels prefer to send scouts to high-schools to find youth with the right look.
Such was the case with the 27-year-old In Young, who was first spotted among her classmates by the giant K-Pop label CJ Music.
"I was picked up by our company where I still belong to," she says. "At the time I was a high-school student gathering around my friends. I was quite young to start training but I get better and better while practising."
In Young refers to an in-house music school, where aspiring performers must study before joining most major labels.
After intense classes ranging from singing and choreography, the performer is then presented as a solo act or placed within a group. They are then either given a name or a hammy acronym, such as Mblaq for Music Boys Live in Absolute Quality or SS501 for Double-S Five-Oh-One.
K-Pop's aversion to subtlety also extends to the configuration of its groups.
When nine South Korean females suddenly walk on to the Corniche stage on Thursday night, one could be forgiven for thinking half of them were roadies. Instead, they would be the supersized girl band Nine Muses, preparing to wow their audience with thumping electro-pop songs delivered through synchronised dance moves and porcelain smiles.
With K-Pop making waves internationally – a recent showcase was held in New York's Madison Square Garden with another scheduled next month in Brazil – Nine Muses's Sera is confident in K-Pop's mix of the familiar and the foreign.
"I don't think it's any different from American pop, however, K-pop has unique beats that go with dance," she says.
"Once people in Abu Dhabi experience a K-pop live performance, especially from us, they will see how the performance is well harmonised with the lyrics, singers and the choreography."
One performer making a hero's welcome to Abu Dhabi, on Friday night is the UK's R&B sensation Jay Sean. From small-time beginnings in the UK's Asian underground music scene, Sean has taken the long route to success with two solo albums doing well in South-east Asia and Eastern Europe before finally catching on with UK and American audiences.
However, after signing to the American hip-hop label Cash Money Records in 2008, his tireless work finally bore fruit. His debut American single the following year, the sublime dance pop that is Down, became a runaway success topping the Billboard charts and his third album All or Nothing finally made a dent stateside.
Speaking before boarding a plane to Abu Dhabi, Sean said the Middle East was one of the first regions to show him love.
"I had a connection with the Middle East since the beginning of my career, really," he says. "I used to go to there frequently in the early part of my career and I loved it. To see the audience grow each time I come back is a really beautiful thing."
Sean says the success of Down was so huge he now refers to his career as either post or "pre-Down era".
With the success of the single, Sean says he was suddenly able to reinvent himself to a new audience. Playing down his Punjabi roots to appease a new lucrative western fan-base was out of the question.
"I actually play it up," he laughs. "I think I am one of the few artists who can say that I have got an entirely global fan base; Lady Gaga has just gone to India now. I was in India nine years ago, I am pretty proud of that."
Beats on the Beach will be at Al Sahil Beach, the Corniche, Abu Dhabi from tomorrow to Saturday. Wyclef Jean and Jay Sean will both perform at Skybar's late-night parties on Thursday and Friday respectively. For performance times and tickets, visit www.thinkflash.aeand www.yasalam.ae