Opinions

We Don’t Need Sabrina Carpenter to ‘Get’ the Zaghrouta

BYKhaoula Ghanem

April 13, 2026

There are bigger things happening in the world right now than Sabrina Carpenter not recognizing a zaghrouta. But if you spent even five minutes online this weekend, you’d think otherwise. On April 11, the popstar made her highly-anticipated Coachella debut, dubbed “Sabrinawood.” It was, by most accounts, a milestone moment in her career, drawing a crowd reportedly nearing 100,000 people and marking her arrival into a new tier of global visibility. Yet, amid the choreography, costume changes, and tightly produced spectacle, it was a brief exchange with the audience that quickly eclipsed the performance itself.

During a quieter moment in the set, a high-pitched wavering trill rose from the crowd, prompting Carpenter to pause and ask what the sound was. When someone shouted that it was part of their culture, she responded by questioning whether it was “yodelling,” adding that she found it “weird.” The moment, captured on dozens of phones, circulated widely online within hours, prompting a wave of criticism that framed her reaction as dismissive, culturally insensitive, and, in some cases, outright xenophobic.

What Carpenter heard was a zaghrouta, a vocal expression deeply rooted across the Middle East and North Africa, and one that carries a long and layered history. Anthropologists have traced forms of ululation back thousands of years, with variations documented in ancient Egypt, the Levant, and parts of North Africa, where the sound became associated with communal rituals, celebrations, and rites of passage. Today, the zaghrouta remains a staple at weddings, births, and moments of collective joy, performed through a rapid oscillation of the tongue while sustaining a high-pitched vocal tone. While the sound can vary depending on region and context, its cultural meaning is widely understood across Arab communities as a marker of celebration rather than disruption.

Given that context, it is not surprising that many viewers felt unsettled by Carpenter’s reaction. At the same time, the scale and intensity of the backlash raise a separate, more complicated question about expectation and projection, particularly when it comes to Western pop figures operating within largely American cultural frameworks.

Carpenter, who grew up in Pennsylvania and rose to prominence through the Disney Channel in the early 2010s, has built her career primarily within Western pop circuits, where exposure to non-Western traditions is often limited or mediated through curated, commercial contexts. While that reality does not excuse dismissiveness, it does help explain how a sound like the zaghrouta could register as unfamiliar in the moment, especially within the sensory overload of a live festival environment. In the hours following the performance, Carpenter issued an apology acknowledging that she had not understood what she was hearing and expressing regret for how she responded.

my apologies i didn’t see this person with my eyes and couldn’t hear clearly. my reaction was pure confusion, sarcasm and not ill intended. could have handled it better! now i know what a Zaghrouta is!
I welcome all cheers and yodels from here on out https://t.co/f3KuT8sggH

— Sabrina Carpenter (@SabrinaAnnLynn) April 11, 2026

That apology, however, did little to slow the pace of online reactions, which had already begun to frame the moment as emblematic of a broader disregard for Arab and North African cultures. Some of that frustration is rooted in a longer history of misrepresentation and erasure, particularly within Western media industries that have often flattened or exoticized the region’s cultural expressions.

Meanwhile, entire countries across our region are being flattened, displaced, and erased in real time—and many of the same celebrities we demand cultural sensitivity from stay silent. Or worse, selectively vocal. The irony? Carpenter’s own set featured Susan Sarandon, one of the few Hollywood figures who has consistently spoken out on Palestine, even at the cost of her career. That nuance got lost somewhere between the reposts and the outrage.

Which brings us back to a more uncomfortable question: why do we still crave acknowledgment from people who have shown, time and time again, that they are not paying attention? Why do we need them to “get” the zaghrouta for it to feel legitimate? Our cultures are not niche or obscure, and they certainly don’t need a Coachella co-sign to exist or matter. The zaghrouta was echoing long before festival speakers, and it will outlive them too.

None of this suggests that cultural literacy should not matter, or that public figures should be absolved from engaging more thoughtfully with audiences that extend far beyond their immediate cultural context. However, it does point to the limitations of expecting meaningful recognition or validation from individuals whose exposure to these traditions may be minimal at best. More importantly, it raises the question of whether immediate and total condemnation is the most effective way to encourage understanding, particularly when the individual in question has acknowledged their mistake and expressed a willingness to learn.

There is a difference between deliberate mockery and unfamiliarity, and collapsing the two can sometimes obscure opportunities for more productive engagement. Cultural exchange, when it happens in real time and under public scrutiny, is often uneven and imperfect, shaped as much by gaps in knowledge as by intention. If the goal is to create greater awareness around practices like the zaghrouta, then allowing room for explanation, correction, and even initial misunderstanding may ultimately be more constructive than shutting down the conversation entirely.

The zaghrouta does not require validation from a Coachella stage to hold its meaning, nor does its significance diminish because it was momentarily misunderstood. It continues to exist, as it has for generations, within communities that recognize and sustain it. Perhaps the more pressing question is not why a Western pop star failed to recognize it, but why that recognition still feels necessary in the first place.

We Don’t Need Sabrina Carpenter to ‘Get’ the Zaghrouta

Suggestions

Articles

Topics

We Don’t Need Sabrina Carpenter to ‘Get’ the Zaghrouta

Related Stories

More From Opinions

Suggestions

Articles

Topics

Newsletter

The only newsletter you won't unsubscribe from

Follow Us