Who is Abdullah Siddiqui? The electropop prodigy opens up about his journey

Abdullah Siddiqui, Pakistan's 20-year-old next big thing in music, recently opened up about his musical journey in an interview for Spotify. The singer-songwriter recently made headlines with his inclusion in Forbes' Asia 30 Under 30 list earlier this year.

"It started for me in my parents' house, in front of a really old, super buggy computer, some very rudimentary music software, and just pressing random buttons, trying to make it sound like music," Siddiqui said of how his journey as an artist began a decade earlier.

When asked about his inspirations, Siddiqui named electropop pioneer Imogen Heap, James Blake, Sophie, Arca and Björk as artists who have influenced him. These influences reflect his appetite for experiential music, a very post-modern taste in sounds that thrives in fusing of a lot of varying musical influences, and the sheer experimentalism that today's high-tech production allows for.

"Pretty much all pop music and a lot of the cookie-cutter teen pop music that I listened to growing up, that sort of informed me a lot," he said.

"Dextral", and, "cinematic", are the two words Siddiqui used when asked to describe his music in one word. "One of the two," he said.

The year 2021 seems to be shaping up as a big year for Siddiqui and his music. He announced he's working on his next album, which he hopes will be out by the end of the year. He's also involved with some commercial ventures that he says promise to be exciting.

His latest album, which is also his third, dead Beat poets, and his own dedicated playlist, 'This is Abdullah Siddiqui', are both now available on Spotify, we urge you to give them a shot!

He also held a 60-second concert with Spotify, where he sang his hit song ‘Kids’, originally sung with Shamoon Ismail.

Making music since he was a kid, the singer-songwriter first broke to national fame with his Nescafe Basement original 'Resistance', and later his super hit 'Kingdom' for the Peshawar Zalmi in PSL6 earlier this year. The song was Zalmi's official anthem.