Techno, karak and laundries: Inside Dubai DJ Rose-End’s sets

Dubai: What does a Deira laundry, a tiny cafeteria and an underground EDM set have in common? For Dubai-based DJ Rose-End, they’re all part of the show.

The Dubai-based DJ, music producer and promoter has been taking his electronic sets to some of the city's more unexpected locations, filming them and sharing them online. The result is an unusual collision of underground music and everyday Dubai. And that's exactly the point.

“I think mainly Bur Dubai and Deira, of course, because that's where Dubai really started,” he says. “For me, these areas are the roots of your city.” His location-hunting usually involves a lot of walking. He explores neighbourhoods, spots somewhere interesting and then, despite admitting he's “quite shy”, walks inside and asks if he can film.

“Honestly, I'm a quite shy person, so every time I do this, it's still a little stressful,” he says. “Going to random places and asking people if I can film is definitely outside of my comfort zone.”

Sometimes the answer is no. He gets it. But when someone says yes, he says he's 'super grateful'.

It all started with Winamp

Rose-End's relationship with DJing began almost 20 years ago, when he was in seventh grade.

His first set wasn't exactly the stuff of headline festivals. There were no decks, mixers or elaborate lighting rigs. Just a computer, a mouse, a keyboard and two very familiar pieces of software.

“We didn't have any professional DJ equipment,” he recalls. “So basically we were mixing tracks using Windows Media Player and Winamp.” He shares.

But the fascination was real. He had already fallen in love with electronic music as a child, drawn to house, electro house and tech house. Then came the experience of hearing electronic music properly loud, deep and surrounded by a crowd.

“I was obsessed with that feeling,” he says.

There was something else that pulled him in, too: The control.  “For those two hours, you are the one controlling the energy in the room,” he says. “You are playing the music that you genuinely love, and at the same time, people around you are dancing and enjoying it with you.”

By 2011, he was making his first money from DJing. By 2014, it had become his main job. There were periods when he stepped back and treated it more like a hobby, taking on other work to pay the bills, from selling IT products to working in shops. During Covid, he even became a bicycle courier. But DJing never really disappeared. “I've basically been doing it all my adult life, almost 20 years,” he says.

Finding his sound

Today, Rose-End describes his sound as “stylish underground”. It's less about sticking to one genre, instead he describes it as creating a particular atmosphere. House, techno, IDM and trip-hop can all find their way into his sets.

His approach to the profession has also changed. The excitement and creativity are still there, but he now sees DJing as something that requires structure. “I really believe that if you want to achieve something big in music or DJing, you need a plan,” he says. “You need a schedule, clear goals.” For him, creativity matters, but so does discipline. “Without that structure, it's really hard to grow and get to the next level.”

Why play in a laundry?

The unusual-location videos began before Dubai. Back in his hometown in Russia, Rose-End had already been filming sets in places such as museums and snowy outdoor locations. When he moved to Dubai in 2023, he continued the idea and found a city full of possibilities.

He was also looking for somewhere to play the music he loved. “There weren't that many places where I could play my lovely music, like deep house, acid house, techno music, EDM,” he says. That led him to create his own party, JACK, bringing together people interested in the same sounds.

Then came the videos. “Playing at home in front of a white wall, it's a very boring thing,” he says.

Instead, he wanted the surroundings to become part of the story. He began seeking out local cafés, older buildings, shops and other places that showed a different side of Dubai.

At one point, he describes the contrast between neighbourhoods with a simple example: “Laundry in Deira or in Bur Dubai, and for example, laundry in DIFC, it's two different laundries.” That's the kind of contrast he is interested in.

“You can find a fancy restaurant pretty much anywhere in the world, but a small local spot can only exist in that particular city or country,” he says. “And that's much more interesting to me.”

The city behind the music

Rose-End says architecture, history and the character of a neighbourhood are just as important to him as the music.

When he travels, he walks. A lot. He explores neighbourhoods, visits museums and looks at how cities tell their stories through buildings, shops and everyday details.

“I'm a huge fan of architecture and different cities,” he says. “The visual side is also part of the art, a very important part.”

That becomes particularly relevant in Dubai, a city where new developments can appear almost overnight. For Rose-End, filming in older parts of the city isn't just about finding an interesting backdrop. It's also a way of capturing something that could otherwise disappear. “New places come and go all the time, especially in Dubai,” he says. “But the older places are the ones that built history and preserve a certain part of the city's culture.”

Learning Dubai's underground scene

Moving to a new country wasn't immediately easy. Rose-End says his first six months in Dubai were difficult. He was trying to find work, gigs and, perhaps most importantly, a community. 

That changed when he started a YouTube channel interviewing DJs in Dubai. One of the people he met was Kirill Zhan, founder of Moist Paper Party and Secta, two collectives associated with Dubai's underground music scene.

“I asked him millions questions,” Rose-End says, laughing. Zhan introduced him to promoters and other people in the scene, helping him understand a side of Dubai he hadn't yet discovered.

“He showed me that underground music, it's not only about snobs,” Rose-End says. “It's not only about people like, you know, very unfriendly people. He showed me that no, we are very friendly people, come to us, let's take some coffee.” That sense of community eventually encouraged Rose-End to create his own events.

He also sees Dubai as a place where new ideas can find room to grow. “In Europe there are a lot of competitors, a lot of creative persons, DJs, musicians, millions,” he says. “Here we have also a lot, but… it's the city of the future.”

Mixing cultures, not replacing them

Rose-End's view of making art in Dubai comes with one important rule: adaptation. He believes artists arriving from elsewhere shouldn't simply transplant their existing ideas into the UAE without understanding where they are.

“You need to respect the culture,” he says. “As, you know, we are guests here.” For him, the interesting part is finding a balance between where you come from and where you are now.

“I try to find a balance between these two cultures: my culture and like, European culture and like, Arabic culture.”

He also hopes to see more Emirati promoters and artists shaping the underground music scene with their own perspectives. “They are the ones who can show Emirati culture from a new perspective,” he says.

And perhaps that's what his videos are really about too. Not simply putting a DJ in an unusual location, but placing one form of culture alongside another and seeing what happens. A techno set in a local café. Electronic music against an old Dubai street. A DJ who started out mixing tracks on Winamp now looking for the city's roots.

For Rose-End, the stranger the combination, the better. “Weird pictures work in Instagram and social media,” he says with a laugh. But beneath the visual experiment is something much simpler. “I love music, I love DJing,” he says. “I think it's one of the best jobs in the world.”