assaad lakkis - musician and producer extraordinaire - takes us on a journey back to the beginnings of his music scenes in dubai. from open night jams at the bunker, skating at chicago beach village, buying thames originals bootleg cassettes at music master in deira city center, a life changing kiss concert on tv, discovering hendrix and frank zappa, playing prince's club in minneapolis, to opening the incredible bull funk studios in his hometown.   he chooses frank zappa's oh no as the...

we speak to one of our deep inspirations, Meitha Al Mazrooei about growing up in dubai, studying architecture at AUS, and co-founding WTD Magazine. Meitha Al Mazrooei is the editor of WTD Magazine, a publication aimed at providing a platform for discourse among architects and designers. She is also the co-founder of the Center for Architectural Discourse. Al Mazrooei holds a bachelor’s in design management from the American University of Sharjah and an MS in curatorial and conceptual...

Todd Reisz, architect and writer is our latest podcast guest. Reisz has served as the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor in Design at Yale School of Architecture and as a guest faculty member at Harvard Graduate School of Design. From 2012 to 2017, he was the Rose Visiting Assistant Professor in Urban Studies at Yale.   At OMA, Reisz led the office’s first entry at the Venice Architecture Biennial (2006) and edited Al Manakh (2007) and Al Manakh 2: Gulf Continued (2010), two...

we talk to singer-songwriter Mike Ross about growing up in sharjah, being a dxb-kid, returning to dubai and being a professional musician there. he selected 2 + 2 = 5 by radiohead as the track that represents 2003 for him. Mike Ross, performerer, writerer, bio-denier. Mike's YouTube twitter.com/mikeyross

Mishaal Al Gergawi is the cofounder and CEO of Axis, an enterprise saas startup based in New York. Mishaal began his career in investment banking at HSBC and Deutsche Bank, then became a writer and finally founded the Delma Institute an Abu Dhabi-based think tank and consultancy. he joins us to discuss being a dxb-kid and selects the year 2001 as his jumping off point. his track of that year is The Space Between by the Dave Matthews Band.

the first podcast in a series that accompanies the dxb-kids documentary about the birth of creative scenes in dubai on the noughties and beyond. www.dxbkids.film more podcast content for backers of kickstarter.com/projects/shehab/dxb-kids

marisa katz on dubai.