Producer Ebony Madry of Wasted Potential and Artist Manager Alyce Hayek discuss the challenge of taking a party from smaller venues to a sold-out Shrine, all while preserving its cultural identity

Photos by Jesse Vazquez

Ibrahim Abu-Ali, AKA DJ HABIBEATS, was going through law school when he started Habibi’s House in Los Angeles. The original ethos behind the party was simply creating a place where he could play the kind of music he was already producing: a fusion of Middle Eastern sounds and contemporary dance music. He ended up creating a cultural movement. His monthly party quickly grew into a touring event, as pan-Arabic diaspora versions of “come to Brazil” type comments flooded his TikTok and Instagram reels.

As a first-generation son of Palestinian immigrants, Abu-Ali is a Bay-Area native who now resides in LA, but his following is worldwide. "I like to say it's a party for the immigrants of the world,” explains his manager of three years, Alyce Hayek of Grass Fed Music. His sounds go beyond the Middle East, also infusing Armenian, South Asian, African and Latin samples.

Habibi’s House Goes Global

DJ HABIBEATS’ rise is unique in that he cultivated a devoted community long before releasing original music. The project has since played throughout the United States and Canada, Europe, the Middle East, India, Asia and Australia. His popularity is driven by both social media and word-of-mouth within diaspora communities.

Grass Fed Music Manager Alyce Hayek and DJ HABIBEATS on May 1 at The Shrine in Los Angeles

Middle Eastern music is often heard at weddings, cultural gatherings, religious festivals, restaurants and hookah lounges, but is rarely seen in clubs. DJ HABIBEATS began remixing familiar Arabic songs and presenting them on the dancefloor, creating a third space for audiences who hadn’t seen traditional elements of their culture represented in nightlife.

Many attendees tell the team the events connect them to home in a way they haven't felt elsewhere. "A lot of the fans that come to the shows will ask me, 'how is it that I can be in LA but feel like I went to my home country and back all in the same night?'" Hayek reflects.

Three years after the first Habibi’s House party, the movement culminated in a sold-out Shrine Expo Hall performance on May 1 in Los Angeles, attended by more than 5,200 fans. With this rapid growth comes the challenge of scaling production for larger venues while still preserving the intimate feel of the early parties.

Building Infrastructure & Scaling Up

By the time Grass Fed Music came on board, DJ HABIBEATS had already grown into Los Angeles venues approaching 1,000 capacity. Their focus became building the infrastructure around him by assembling the right management team, securing the right booking agents, developing touring systems and finding partners who understood the vision.

As artists move from clubs into theaters and larger headline venues, those partnerships often become increasingly important. Production decisions that once involved a few house fixtures and venue infrastructure suddenly require intentional design, scalable systems and creative problem-solving. For emerging artists, the challenge isn't simply making a show bigger—it's preserving the energy and connection that made audiences care in the first place.

Among these partners was design and production collective Wasted Potential. Producer Ebony Madry worked with the artist team to develop a visual identity that preserved the artist’s diverse influences, while also shaping the production and lighting design for the Hollywood Palladium and Shrine.

Design for the Shrine

The vision for the shows included preserving the intimacy of the original parties. "How do you still have it feel like a house party, right?," asks Madry. For the show at the Palladium, it felt natural to go with an in-the-round design, but the Shrine is a long, narrow hall that couldn’t accommodate that without feeling disjointed.

"The more we talked about it, we thought: let's have VIPs and guestlists on the stage. He definitely felt more surrounded, and it felt more like a party, more like a celebration."

While they opted to keep the artist on stage in the classical sense, lighting and video elements were utilized to bring the crowd in. "We thought about ways that we could suppress the ceiling. This included having some lighting up high and some lighting down low to create that hugging feeling,” says Madry.

As the technical partner for lighting and video, PRG stepped in to help advise on specific gear choices that would stay in budget without sacrificing the vision. One of the show's defining visual elements—a massive circular LED halo suspended above the artist—grew out of an ongoing creative dialogue between Wasted Potential and PRG.

What began as a simple LED ticker concept evolved into a 22-foot centerpiece after Account Executive Daniel Sanchez and the PRG team helped identify ways to maximize impact using existing inventory. The result was a larger-than-anticipated scenic element that anchored the room while staying within the realities of a developing artist’s budget.

To further bridge the gap between artist and audience, Media Server Operator Angel Sanchez suggested integrating live camera feeds into the circular LED halo. The resulting mix of close-up performance shots and custom graphics gave fans a more personal connection to DJ HABIBEATS, helping maintain the sense of community that has defined the project from its earliest days.

Sanchez explains that for PRG, these rising stars often present some of the most interesting creative challenges. “As audience sizes grow, the goal isn't necessarily to create arena-scale spectacle,” he says. “The real goal is to help artists translate the identity and community that built their following into increasingly ambitious live experiences.”

As DJ HABIBEATS continues his ascent, that collaborative approach remains essential. Working within the realities of a developing artist budget, Wasted Potential and PRG refined ideas together, balancing ambition with practicality. "I'm trying to make it work for the artists, and PRG is trying to make it work for us," Madry reflected. "It just really goes a long way toward having a smooth show."

CREDITS

Management: Alyce Hayek, Grass Fed Music
Creative Direction: Wasted Potential
Producer & Designer: Ebony Madry
Lighting Director: Peyton Sullivan-Egan

Media Server Operator: Angel Sanchez
PRG Project Manager: Daniel Sanchez
Head Rigger: Joshua Smith
Lighting Crew Chief: Dan Moore
Lighting Dimmer Technician: Joseph Donahue
Lighting Technician: Anthony Eggenforfer
LED Lead: Humberto Rubio Murillo
LED Technician: Angel Peralta