Ibby VK is a 24 year old Pop, Folk, Indie and Acoustic singer/songwriter. The Dubai native originally was in school for chemical engineering but he soon realized his true passion, making music. Although his family is unaware and this make things extremely hard for Ibby VK, he takes his hardships and pain and turns them into something truly spectacular. His style ranges from your standard love ballad, to self-acceptance, signature break-up songs and death. Not only is he an incredible writer but he prides himself on his simplistic approach to live performances. When on stage you’ll find him with his guitar, his loop pedal, and not much else except his charisma and alluring stage presence. He recently dropped a more upbeat single, which Ibby himself admits is out of the normal for him, but we are loving it!
“Fire In Me” is a fresh track about finding ambition and drive within ourselves. Coming from an artist who dropped everything to pursue music this hold an astounding amount of weight. Ibby VK works tirelessly to achieve his goals and nothing can break him. Throughout “Fire In Me” the consistent theme is that sometime you have to reach the bottom to find the strength within yourself. The defining line of the song is "I've got no inspiration except these tears and one man nation looking back at me, and I see, this Fire In Me". This resonates with me because it represents being completely alone and relying solely on yourself for that push to get you going. Ibby VK really shows his vulnerability in this song if you hone in on all of the lyrics but the upbeat and catchy melody keep things light and positive and inspiring. Overall I think that Ibby VK wants to spread the message that we all have a fire in us and if he was abe to find his without any help from anyone around him, then we can too. I love the beat on this track, it’s addicting lyrics and important message are why it will be a hit.
Check out “Fire In Me” here and read more with Ibby VK in our exclusive interview below!
Hey Ibby! Can you start by introducing yourself and telling the readers how you created the stage name Ibby VK?
Hey! I go by the name Ibby, I'm Armenian/Syrian, born and raised in Dubai. I consider myself a songwriter before being an artist and I have no idea what genre my music falls under as I've written everything from Pop and EDM to Rock and Singer-Songwriter Folk and RnB stuff.
The stage name Ibby VK is just short for my full name Ibrahim Vaskin Karakar... it's hard I know haha, hence the short version. But everyone calls me Ibby.
Your song “Fire In Me” is so inspiring. Can you describe your live performance with this more upbeat song as opposed to most of your other slower songs?
I'm so glad you asked about the live version. Firs and foremost, I do not make music for people to just enjoy listening to, I tailor the songs to be as engaging and as captivating as possible when seen live. I have to make sure the fans get their money's worth otherwise I have done a bad job. FIM is like you said one of the few upbeat songs that I have so it's a pretty cool switch up during a live set, I've seen kids aged 8 and seniors aged 80 dance and bop along to the beat subconsciously, and when you get a reaction like that from people who don't know your song and aren't in your targeted demographic is an extraordinary feeling. But I get real ecstatic when people start singing and dancing along to the song, especially the breakdown... you really need to experience this one live to understand the feeling. It's something else!
How do you continue to feed your passion for music?
I don't feed it at all. It's fully self sustained and it's amazing but scary at the same time. When I get writers block or something, I just wait it out and knowing with all certainty that I'm going to finish that song when I get back to it, but it's scary because I don't know what I would do if one day I wake up and it's not there. But again, the live shows, that feeling of people reacting to your work, the crowd, fans, and the support, are a huge driving force when it comes to passion.
Who are you biggest influences artistically?
It would take you a second and a half to know that my live show is mostly inspired by Ed Sheeran haha. But sonically and lyrically, anything from Metallica & Eminem to whatever is on today like Bieber, Lauv & One Direction is an influence really. Linkin Park, Hollywood Undead, and Avenged Sevenfold are bands that have taken up most of my listening time.
Can we expect a new EP with this new single?
HELL YEAH! The plan after FIM is to release a song that I've done with another talented artist for a Redbull X Careem project, then maybe a FIM video followed by the EP "One Man Nation" which is a lyric from FIM, and that's going to include 5 songs, 3 of which are unreleased yet, including my favorite song on the EP which you will definitely love if you're into heartbreak/ballad/acoustic type songs.
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