AP Dhillon talks love, heartbreak, Taylor Swift and making songs in Dubai airport lounge in rare interview

Dubai: Punjabi music powerhouse AP Dhillon isn’t the kind of pop star who swaggers into a room with sunglasses on and a hype entourage trailing behind. He’s shy. He chooses his words carefully. But then comes that laugh — wide, open, and impossible to ignore. It breaks the ice instantly, and suddenly the room feels less like a cold, clinical or transactional interview.

Before we even began, he quietly pulled up a chair for his closest mate, Shinda Kahlon (writer of AP's biggest hits such as Brown Munde and Insane), insisting he join in. “Come, bro, sit here,” he said.

And just like that, it stopped being a solo interview and turned into a two-man act, full of banter, inside jokes, and the kind of stories only friends can tell.

“I thought abs were made in the kitchen, not songs,” I teased. AP laughed. Shinda didn’t miss a beat: “The songs come and they come, and wherever you are, you gotta write them, finish them.”

AP added: “We have written some songs in kitchen or on while we’re on the tour. Driving, driving, I don’t know, you name it. Planes, yeah, he’s made beats in the planes completely. We were coming to India, yeah, on Emirates flight, yeah. We finished it in the lounge. We finished in the Emirates lounge. The hook was there… we wrote it… and at the end of the lounge, we finished our record.”

Forget gleaming studios. Their hits have been born in messy kitchens, on road trips, and in airport lounges with questionable coffee.

Dubai as his test ground

But Dubai airports isn't his only breeding ground for song writing and ideas. AP’s bond with this vibrant city is strong. It's his fifth time performing and it won't be his last, he swears.

“It is one of my favourite place to perform. Yeah. It’s just feel like the audience is so diverse, and it’s such a mix here. And a lot of people are flying from different places, and I think they just want to have fun. And again, my best… like so far, my favourite format is the central stage. And we did that a year ago here in Dubai, and then we took that format to India. So, yeah, it’s been this great success, and so much love.”

I asked if Dubai is his experimental crowd. He nodded. “For that format, yes, it worked like that. But in general, I feel like it’s just so much energy here. Like good energy, good way is this amazing. The crowd’s always been 10 or 10. I love that.”

Kitchens, maggi, and the immigrant hustle

Talk soon turned domestic. “When you moved from Punjab to like Canada, you know, you learn everything,” AP said. “Back home, you’re not in the kitchen ever. Yeah, so when you go to Canada — oh my god, cooking. You know, honestly, you learn how to be independent. Yes, there’s always good. There’s always good.”

Shinda laughed: “We have made parathas together too.”

It’s the kind of immigrant banter that makes you forget you’re talking to a global pop idol.

Watching his own grind on screen

The AP Dhillon: First of a Kind docu-series brought fans into his world, but AP admits it also jolted him.

“Honestly, we, we never took it in when the documentary came out, and we sat and watched, and we’re like, holy… like we went through all this stuff. And like, you know, you’re such on the go mode. You forget about all the moments and the stuff that happened. It’s like one after the other and the other. And life is so fast these days, with social media and everything… you’re into next thing and the next thing. And you never take time to sit and take it in, yes, and when the series came out at that time, I really sat and took it in. I was like, oh shit. Like, it’s actually — we did something good.”

Love, Snoop Dogg, and growing up

AP is equally at ease with heart-melters like Dil Nu and party anthems. He shrugged and pointed to Shinda. “This guy’s a great he’s genius. And the second thing is, is we, we used to focus lot on hip hop. That’s where and how we started.”

Then came his Snoop Dogg story — a meeting that clearly left its mark. AP leaned back as he recalled it: “I was in LA and I met Snoop Dogg, and we went and we sat and we had chat, what not. And he’s like, bro, listen, I was rapping about death and guns ... mostly death, not guns ..."

He trailed off, then explained what Snoop had really been hinting at: “He meant, he was hinting about what happened to Pac [Tupac Shakur]. And he was hinting about other dark stuff.” The lesson was stark.

“It took me a minute to learn but made me realise I’m gonna start talking and singing about love. And he’s like, once I start singing about love, I started getting love from all around the world. He’s like, I go to China, I’m getting love. I go to Europe, I’m getting love.”

That conversation shifted AP’s outlook, both as an artist and a person.

“We, as artists, gonna grew a little bit too, as a lyricist, yes, and for maturing as a person as well. So we’re still making hip hop music, we’re still working on the stuff, yes, but we’re very selective with it these days. And again, like when lot of different wise people talk to you and it, it’s gonna shape you in a way, in a good way. So we tried, we’re trying to make more positive music than before.”

Taylor Swift and love as gangster currency

Naturally, I had to bring up Taylor Swift. She made heartbreak her empire and then shocked the world by finding her Romeo. Did AP think love was still the ultimate pop weapon?

He smiled. “Like, see her life is so different. I can’t compare mine to her. Feel like she’s one of the biggest gangster in the music right now, even though she’s singing about love. But love is something… love heartbreaks, and we all go through in our life at one point or not, for sure. So I think people connect to it. And… like, so much, like, it’s just so easy. We all felt either love or a heartbreak or all these like emotions. We felt it, right? So when we write a record about it, it’s like majority of the people gonna have some connection with it in one way or other, right? Of course, I think it is the biggest currency in our music. Yes, yeah.”

The last word

As we wrapped up, I told him: may you find love, AP, because you’ve already spread so much of it. He grinned, that unmistakable laugh spilling out again.

That’s AP Dhillon off stage: shy, disarming, almost boyish. The beast comes later, when the lights go down and the music kicks in.

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The concert on September 7 is organised by Team Innovation, Livenation & Coca-Cola Arena in support of Dubai Calendar, with ticket prices starting from Dh150. They are available on websites www.livenation.me and www.coca-cola-arena.com