Project Triangle: How Doritos and MDLBEAST Radio Built Saudi Hip Hop’s Boldest Crew

The idea: three disciplines, one triangle

The goal ran deeper than a competition. Discover emerging Saudi creators, put real production resources behind them, and document the whole journey on air and online.

The call: October to November 2025

MDLBEAST Radio and Doritos launched the callout on 26 October 2025, with radio ads, live reads, social videos in Arabic and English, and a campaign site at projecttriangleksa.com. Applications stayed open until 8 November.

Rohit Jayakaran, Head of Radio at MDLBEAST, put it this way at the time: “Project Triangle represents more than a competition. It’s a cultural movement that celebrates bold self-expression and breaks conventional boundaries. In partnership with Doritos, we’re providing Saudi Arabia’s emerging hip hop talent with world-class resources and the platform they deserve.”

Entries came in from across the Kingdom, and three crews were selected, drawn from Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.

Three crews, three completely different energies

Triangle Crew 1: emotion meets instinct. Zain, a 24-year-old rapper and singer-songwriter from Al-Khobar now based in Riyadh, folds rap, R&B and soul into honest storytelling. Behind him, Soyama, a South African-born producer who moved to Riyadh and heard about the competition on the radio, which he took as a sign to reignite his passion. Completing the triangle, Bashir, a dancer from South Riyadh whose movement is raw and instinctive.

Triangle Crew 2: roots, rhythm and respect. Omar T.N.T brings lyrical honesty and lived experience. Kwzaab, a rapper and producer from Riyadh with roots in the south, carries a signature Saudi boom-bap sound built on early hip hop and breakdance culture. Mohammed, born in Makkah and raised in Riyadh, is a B-Boy whose footwork is all discipline and fearlessness.

Triangle Crew 3: global vision, local soul. The Do, born in Riyadh, blends hip hop, pop and Gulf influences. B-Like, a producer whose decade-long career has taken him to more than 30 countries, brings global texture and keeps the soul local. Snwwby, a Riyadh-raised B-Boy, turns rhythm into spectacle.

Eight weeks of real work

This was not a weekend shoot. The crews moved through a structured eight-week program: mentorship sessions, studio production at Beast House, then video pre-production, filming, mixing and mastering.

Each week the story went out on air and online. Three behind-the-scenes videos and three radio capsules per week followed the crews as tracks took shape, so listeners watched the songs get built rather than just hearing the finished version.

The journey, week by week

Scroll for every episode

The showdown at Beast House

On 18 December 2025, all three crews premiered their videos and performed live at Beast House in Riyadh, and the room decided the winner through live interactive voting.

The crews were not the only ones on stage. DJ Mubarak, Alyoung and Randar, Shancoty and DJ Ush all performed across the night, turning the finale into a full hip hop show rather than a results announcement.

Beast House was packed, and the energy in the comments said as much as the room did. “It was a beautiful night,” one read. “Today is our day. Hip hop will be alive as long as these people are here.”

The winners: Triangle Crew 2

Omar T.N.T, Kwzaab and Mohammed took the title of Saudi Arabia’s Boldest Crew with “Dareeto”, a track that does exactly what the crew set out to do, which is put Saudi boom-bap on a national stage without sanding down its edges.

The win came with more than a trophy: distribution through MDLBEAST Records, airplay on MDLBEAST Radio, media coverage, and continued mentorship and amplification.

The music: three tracks, out now

All three were released through MDLBEAST Records and are in rotation on MDLBEAST Radio.

What it moved

• 7,147,157 video views across the campaign
• 22,546 interactions and 257 unique content pieces
• 367,046 unique visitors and 419,178 pageviews on projecttriangleksa.com, with 98% of traffic from Saudi Arabia and an average session of 1 minute 55 seconds
• 524 plays on air across MDLBEAST Radio audio episodes

The audience did not just watch. They picked crews, argued for them publicly, tagged their friends, asked how to enter, and came back week after week. Doritos mentions came through organic and positive, which is the hard kind to buy.

Why it matters

Project Triangle proved something the Saudi scene already suspected. Give local creators studio time, mentorship and a real stage, and the work stands up next to anything international. One comment from the finale put it better than any brief could: if they didn’t speak Arabic, I’d think they were international.

Three tracks are out. One crew took the title. The rest of the scene now has a blueprint.