Dubai's music scene is unique, says US singer

Jamil Khan, Senior Reporter

The music scene of Dubai is unique with art lovers from all over the world. Whoever performed here has memorable experience and we are thrilled to get one.

This was stated by the California based singer-songwriter, entrepreneur and American-Chinese artist Allen Ling in an exclusive interview with Gulf Today in Dubai.

Allen Ling, the multifaceted singer- songwriter who has captivated the global music scene with his distinctive voice and profound lyrical messages was in Dubai for his debut performance as part of his Asian Tour along with Flipsyde’s lead guitarist Dave Lopez. He recently held two packed performances in New Delhi and Mumbai in India.

Ling’s music resonates across cultural and geographical boundaries and his videos have amassed over two million streams, and gained a strong following in the UK, India, Indonesia, and beyond.

The release of ‘Closer’ marks a significant milestone in Ling’s career as the new song has already amassed over 1 million views in just two weeks.

He had been starting writing music from early age and written 200 songs by the age of 20. He obtaining a Master’s degree from the University of Southern California and within one year, he set up his business and opened an out-patient center for physical therapy.

Ling has been running a successful physical therapy business in back home and managing successfully his time between his passion of music, singing and songwriting career, podcasting, among others.

“I’m trying to make balance in my music and business equally as three days spending with patients and three days to engage with different segments of music from writing, composing, practicing or recording,” he said.

Responding a question about the Asia Tour, Allen Ling said that “So far the Asian Tour was phenomenal, had chance to meet amazing people and saw enormous response from the audience which motivated us to release a couple of new songs. Asia is an environment that is burgeoning artistically and culturally. It’s a very pure place that is still developing artistically and culturally.

“It’s important to deliver songs with depth and heartfelt meaning,” shares Allen Ling, highlighting the significance of music with substance in today’s world.

About his Dubai show, Allen said “Opting for Dubai was a natural choice. The city's unique mix of cultural diversity and artistic ingenuity aligns perfectly with my musical vision. It's about forging connections that transcend entertainment, tapping into the shared human experience," Ling elaborates “I’m looking for to create a nice impression of our music in the local music scene which is more spread out. Our music (me and Dave) created together is more like the Beetles that kind of songwriting. We will not try to dazzle people with too much noise, beats, music or dance like stuff but will entertain the audience with lyrics, melody, chords and sounds,” he added.

Dave added that he was told by one of his famous music friend that Dubai is one of the best place in all over the world to perform, as people here are more energy, appreciating and enthralling. “Every country has amazing artists and while here I am looking for mingling with local artists and try to learn something new as there is always new things to learn,” he said.

Even though he (Allen) wrote 200 different songs before the age of 20 but many never been recorded. “I slowed down writing music when I was graduating school and later raising family and running a business because you can not continue creative work after spending a massive amount of energy in other important stuff,” he mentioned.

Dave mentioned that he (Allen) wrote many songs for Dave’s daughter then 2-year-old, who is now around nine.

However, Allen was once more serious about creating comic books and created many books besides continued writing music.

He also started singing as studio artists and later performed on stage in front of large audiences.

To respond a question, Allen mentioned that the digital music is more convenient and cheap than analog as one can create new music with less efforts and more conveniently.

Their future plans consist of releasing more songs and perform as part of their second leg of Asia Tour with shows in Indonesia and other countries.