Abdullah Siddiqui, a Lahore-based 18-year-old singer-songwriter and electronic pop music producer, with a number of releases to his credit fell on the underground/indie music circuit radar when he made his Forever South (FXS) debut, the net label co-founded by artists Rudoh and Dynoman with the experimental track, ‘Fiction’. Since then, he has appeared on True Brue TV and most recently released the song, ‘Resistance’. He was also nominated for an LSA in 2018 in the category of Best Emerging Talent in Music.
The prodigal electronic music artist appeared on BBC Asian Network this November and was interviewed by Waqas Saeed. In between songs, the young artist spoke about local music, creating electronic pop, and much more in the two-hour long show.
Abdullah Siddiqui, speaking about music, told Waqas Saeed: “I’ve been doing this very recently; it’s been about three to four years. And there’s a kind of electronic scene here that’s underground but recently they’ve been trying to break into mainstream and it’s great to see that.”
When asked by Waqas about the underground Pakistani music scene and how it’s always associated with guitar bands or folk, before adding that Abdullah’s music is reminiscent of Owl City, the Lahore-based teenager responded that he does his production from home. “It’s all done on my laptop. I’m working with a pretty old system so it can be frustrating sometimes. I was working on an iPad until two years ago when I switched to a Macbook.”
Abdullah revealed that he got involved with music when he got a guitar at age nine, counting James Blake, Bjork as influences. Most importantly, Abdullah revealed that he has an album coming out next year. “Distorted kind of futuristic sound,” said the prodigal artist.
The show also featured a set list that included songs by local artists such as Kashmir (‘Pareshaniyan’), Aaroh (‘Main Nahin Manta’), The Jupiters (‘Dosti’), Arif Lohar and Meesha Shafi’s ‘Alif Allah’ and Naseebo Lal & Talal Qureshi’s ‘Aag’ among others.
