Thumping bass and infectious beats reverberate across the square, which is already in shadow. Yet the stage is still bathed in the warm light of the setting sun. The melodies sound warm and, as corny as it may sound, exotic to European ears.
It’s the performance by 3YOONI, a Swiss-Iraqi artist who describes his own music as “diaspora pop”. However, it actually has very little to do with what one typically associates with the generic term “pop”. Here, different cultural soundscapes collide—and at first it sounds a bit unfamiliar. Even so, having heard the track Anwār / Lights, recently featured in Weekly5, which I’m falling more in love with by the day, I had a rough idea of what the gathered crowd was in for.
Starting off cautiously, and hampered by technical issues, Yassin Mahdi, aka 3YOONI, and his fellow musicians soon build up momentum; the audience’s initial reservations fade as they become increasingly immersed in the sound. And this sound is at once powerful and fragile, dreamy and crystal-clear, resolute and vulnerable. At times, it seems as though 3YOONI’s high, nasal voice is completely detached from the rumbling wall of sound. Yet they find their way back to one another time and again, often in ecstatic climaxes.
Somehow, everything seems heightened in this music. You sense love, loss, and longing. You can dance, dream, and despair. But you’re never truly left to drown; there’s always a hopeful, empowering notion to give you a hand.
آني غموض - انت علم
آني جهل - انت معرفة
آني ضوة الگمر - انت الشمس
آني شرق - انت الغرب
I’m mysterious – you’re science
I’m the other – you’re the known
I’m the moonlight – you’re the sun
I’m the orient – so you’re the occident
3YOONI – said
Mahdi was born in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad. His parents fled Iraq with him and settled in Graubünden, Switzerland. Here, as a person of colour, he has experienced being marginalised. With 3YOONI, Mahdi critically examines identity, language, and racism—not only through music as on his 2025 debut album Baghdad, but also through a Bachelor’s thesis at the Bern University of Teacher Education on postcolonialism and Orientalism, and through his engagement with the City of Bern’s Integration Expert Commission.
3YOONI’s upcoming EP, Middle West, will be released on 8 May. And after hearing Anwār / Lights and but even more now, after experience the music live, I am definitely recommending to get a taste of this unique, bold, and forward-thinking sound.
