Anees

The Northern Virginia kid with 196 million streams.

Anees Mokhiber was born July 30, 1992 and grew up in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington D.C. — Palestinian and Lebanese, raised between two sets of cultural expectations and the American suburb in between. He studied philosophy and sociology at George Mason University, started writing songs in his bedroom, and built an audience the old way: one song finding the right ears, then more ears, then too many to count.

On April 10, 2022, Justin Bieber joined his Instagram Live. Sixty thousand viewers were watching. "Sun and Moon" followed. It hit #1 on the Billboard Philippines chart — the first English-language song to do so — and went on to accumulate over 196 million Spotify streams. That is not a lucky accident. That is a writer who had been ready for years before anyone found him.

"I make music that I hope connects people — regardless of where they're from or what they look like." — Anees Mokhiber

Why he belongs here.

Anees is Palestinian and Lebanese and he has never hidden either. He signed the Artists4Ceasefire letter in October 2023 calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. He makes English-language pop with an emotional register that draws directly from his Arab identity — not as a marketing angle, but as the actual source material. For the Palestinian and Lebanese diaspora in OC, this set is personal in a way few others on this lineup will be.

What to expect.

Intimate and guitar-forward. The kind of show where the crowd goes quiet and stays quiet. Come ready to feel something you have been holding for a while.