Looking back at Singapop’s journey & its future
Globally influential, speedy evolution, trendsetting fashion… the pop world has a precedent from Asia which speaks to the world. Wherein lies the future of our pop scene – how to generate and sustain it beyond the quintessential Singapore songs? Is the answer strategic innovation of the entertainment industry? To expand and impact beyond our island shores, or concentrate on the niche? Apart from bottom-up indie initiatives, is National Infrastructure needed? What’s missing in the scene?
T:>Works Public Conversations
The Public Conversations, first launched in 2024 under the T:>Works Season of Thought Leadership, were created as a platform for dialogue — bringing together cultural practitioners, artists and audiences to reflect on the evolving role of cultures and arts in society.
The inaugural conversation in 2024 was about the people’s cultures of a national theatre. In 2026, the public conversation centres on the futures of Singapop.
“The way the Singapore government presently supports pop culture more or less is through the idea of national identity and community bonding. Perhaps this is a kind of limit.”
Dr. Ong Keng Sen
A WELCOME TO THE EVENING
by Dr. Ong Keng Sen
While interviewing Dick Lee and Jacintha for the upcoming documentary theatre piece Lush Life, I was struck very often by the lack of options they had as teenagers growing up in Singapore, wanting to write and sing songs about their world. After all, there must be some lived experience which embodies the universal to create a particular archive of affect. From this very sheltered reality of Singapore, one hardly perceives the war in Iran. Perhaps just the pinch of the fuel prices. How does one arrive in the world, if at all? Arriving on one’s chosen terms. Not as a wax figurine on top of a nation’s birthday cake.
Delving deeper into the lives of these two music pioneers who crossed pop and art in Singapore, I encountered the strategy of New Asian pop becoming the shooting star in a dazzling 21st century galaxy. Can innovative strategies harness the entertainment market, the corporate industry, the national political ambitions of unity and identity, and not be appropriated by these powers?
The regional Nusantara or Mandopop market beckon crossovers. These strategies lie by the wayside in the face of the speedy evolution of trend-setting K-pop. Korea, as a nation, invested in the digitality of their citizens for two decades to harvest decentralised streaming and individual creative platforms. Behind the façade of K-pop, many national infrastructural scaffolds had to be developed.
But we are racing ahead. Apart from the success formula, where is the self in all this?
It’s no longer the fake binary of home or the world, today many options lie in between. Today’s teenagers have many more options: A video WhatsApp call instead of a hundred-dollar trunk call for instance. We learn from the internet – how to taichi, how to vogue, how to write songs with AI. Maybe, just maybe, one can create a world music sound which becomes a global phenomenon, a movement. How do personal dreams translate into a scene? Can navel gazing become future gazing? Is it possible for individuals living in a small country to dream big? How does one continue to hear the music and be the music in every phase of one’s life?
Episode 1:
Does “Not From Here” Mean Better?
Shazza
“The question I always come back to then is, can we build a culture that believes that we do make good music?”
Shazza is a homegrown singer-songwriter, known for her lyrical storytelling and diverse musical style.
Making strong representation and putting Singapore’s music on the global map with her notable achievement as Spotify radar artiste and music artiste listed in 30 under 30’s Forbes 2025, she has performed at prominent events, including Singapore’s National Day, Chingay, and on international stages.
Episode 2:
“Can you afford to dream?”
Abangsapau
The question isn’t just if we can dream, but where?
ABANGSAPAU is a Malay-Sikh rapper who focuses on peeling back the layers of what it means to be Singaporean through his music.
Fresh off the heels of his debut album, ABANGSAPAU has been running the hip-hop circuit between Singapore and Malaysia, performing at festivals, stadium shows, and national events across both countries.
Episode 3:
Balancing Singaporean identity
with emotional sincerity
weish
“Maybe it’s not so much about how we sound, but what we’re saying and what stories we’re telling.”
weish is a multidisciplinary artist with a diverse range of work within the music, theatre and literary scenes. Coming off a blockbuster run of Secondary: The Musical, with Checkpoint Theatre, as well as a celebrated solo concept album stray gods, her worlds span theatre making to traditional gig music contexts.
Episode 4:
Generations of voices layered together
Dick Lee
“What makes a song Singaporean is the element of being Singaporean, what we see, how we feel,
what we live.”
Dick Lee is no stranger to our Singapore shores. Born and bred here, achieving regional stardom with his 1989 platinum album The Mad Chinaman.
A recipient of the Cultural Medallion and a designated Steinway Artist, Lee continues to shape Singapore’s creative landscape through his creative agency, Dick Lee Asia.
What’s Next?
Lush Life
T:>Works presents Lush Life — a luminous documentary performance where legends, music, and memory intertwine — at the Singapore International Festival of Arts.
Written and directed by T:>Works Artistic Director Ong Keng Sen, the show brings together jazz songbird Jacintha and pop icon Dick Lee for an intimate reflection on a life devoted to music.
Learn more here.
THE AGEncy FUND
The AGEncy Fund, set up by independent arts company T:>Works, is an enabling micro-grant platform to provide vital resources for individuals aged 60 and above.
The fund can be used to develop new works, build their capacity and foster meaningful connections across generations.
One of the objectives of the The AGEncy Fund is to explore the potential of intergenerational discourse and complementation.
The AGEncy Fund publicly encourages and supports projects by mature individuals through an open call with Project Grants.
Learn more here.