It was a Thursday when I met up with Young Gaby amidst the vibrant atmosphere of Dubai’s bustling Design District. As the workday concluded, and the crowd relaxed with glasses of wine at the beloved D3 hotspot, One Life, the young rapper stood out with his choice of a refreshing smoothie named “It Takes Two To Mango.” Against the backdrop of a dynamic playlist pulsating through the speakers of the eatery, he shared his passion for music, his upbringing, and his perspective on the beauty of melancholy with MILLE.
Balancing days at his uncle’s salon with nights as a trapper, the 25-year-old has crafted a musical style that revolves around the raw emotion of sadness, asserting that there’s a unique beauty in embracing the darker facets of life. The Dubai-based Palestinan-Syrian artist isn’t one to shy away from going against generic sounds. Blending elements from various genres, fusing elements of trap, electro-pop, grunge rock, Young Gaby has created a world of his own, and it’s up to the listener to enter as they please.
“I was seven-years-old and back in Syria. I was in the car with my mom and dad, my dads uncle, and we were on a road trip traveling somewhere. My dad was playing George Wassouf on the car radio and I was singing along, that was the first time I became cautious about music,” he recalls, tracing back the genesis of how his sound today came to be.
Singing along to George Wassouf in the car eventually and abruptly turned into an affinity to the rap game. It wasn’t long before he found himself rapping over Ye’s classic beats and writing to the same flow. “I’d get a song and I’d write a verse in the same flow, same pitch. I would just change the words.”
Crediting Rack City rapper Tyga of initially getting him into rap all together, the young rapper says that although he spent most of his evenings playing around with music, “It was never serious. We were just writing and having fun with it.”
So what changed? “In 2016 I got to know Nnamdi– many may know him as 1takennandos– and Seki. Seki is an artist and Nnamdi is a producer and DJ, and we started playing football together. After a while that relationship saw itself into music, and from there it happened organically,” he shared. “Nnamdi invited me to the studio one day, and from there, we were just going non-stop.”
Initially, the rapper was solely transfixed by the world of trap, from Future and Young Thug to Playboi Carti, Yeat, Ken Carson, and Destroy Lonely. The subgenre of hip-hop, which emerged in the poorest neighborhoods of Atlanta, felt close to Young Gaby. “When I listen to trap I feel like I can relate to 70% of the lyrics,” he shares.
Young Gaby and his family moved to Dubai in 2011 from a small city called Homs after political unrest engulfed Syria and war ensued across the Levant country, causing many families to flee for safety. “I was a young kid, and my day went like this: I would go down to the hara (hood) and stay out until sunset just doing a bunch of f*** shit, whether it was playing football or annoying the neighbors. I lived on the streets.”
In 2011, his life on the street was put to an abrupt end. “I couldn’t go to school for some time after it got raided. There were bombs over here, bombs over there, gunshots on the window. At some point we got used to it, but we were lucky to have a safe room to hide in. The first few months were scary, then we got used to it,” he recalls. “My grandpa was held hostage, and my uncle got kidnapped. He disappeared for two months and we knew nothing about him, or who kidnapped him, where they took him, and why. They just dropped him back in front of the house and to this day we don’t know anything about his kidnapping,” he adds.
When asked if he ever puts these experiences into his music, Young Gaby replies that he does, but he doesn’t feel that it’s the right time to release the songs. He reveals that much of his personal storytelling remains unreleased, while he waits for the right moment in his career where he is able to have the power to make a change with his music.
Ultimately, music became an output of some sort for him to figure himself out and to create his own space and world. His performances at events like Dubai’s Redfest and Art Dubai paved the way for his latest milestone, the release of his EP Cloud 9, showcasing his growth as an artist and his willingness to explore new sounds.
In his new sonic project, Young Gaby was able to deliver something that diversified his sound, and delved into the darkness that comes with the inevitable heartbreak that we all experience at least once. “The sound started very trappy, but I have always loved pop, and electro-pop music. I love Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, and one of my favorite artists is Pitbull. So as I grew as a musician I went from being into a very heavy trap (my sound) to the sound that is coming out now, which is alternative rock fused with trap and electro and I fuse some Arabic and English, so as a result the sound is very unique.”
Think of trap and gothic rock had a baby. It may send you down an interesting spiral, but you’re still able to dance through it. Take I Wonder, for example, where he delves into the question of “why me?”
“Like why do all these heartbreaks keep on landing on me? Am I really meant to live sad and heartbroken? Will I ever find happiness, or am I the one that keeps going back and putting myself in that position?,” he wonders aloud. Having an affinity for the darker things in life, Young Gaby shares that he would want his music played on the soundtrack of the original Addams Family.
As the de facto leader of Dubai’s sad boy music movement, Young Gaby’s sense of wistfulness extends beyond the tracks, and embodies itself into his drip, which is usually black-on-black, everything. “The way I dress changes with my music,” he proclaims. “I love emo and goth shit. I swear I’m a happy person but that’s what I gravitate towards. When I have more reach I definitely want to do something with fashion. I would love to have my own brand, I want it to be an extension of music,” he reveals.
Expanding on how sadness and heartbreak brings out his creative ebb and flow, Young Gaby shares that you won’t hear him at the club anytime soon. “I don’t make happy music. Sadness is a beautiful thing. So many beautiful things come out of sadness, it’s okay to be sad,” he insists.
Check out Young Gaby’s latest video:
Photos: Supplied
