Malaysian singer Zainalabidin to stage final concert in Singapore

The concert, part of the Esplanade’s Pesta Raya 2026, marks his 50th anniversary in music. Read more at straitstimes.com.

SINGAPORE – Malaysian music veteran Zainalabidin will take the stage at the Esplanade Concert Hall on April 17 for what he says will be his final full-scale concert, bringing down the curtain on a five-decade career that has reshaped the sound and message of Malay pop.

“This Singapore show is my last concert,” the 66-year-old, whose moniker is also spelt Zainal Abidin, tells The Straits Times in a Zoom interview from his home in Kuala Lumpur. “I am not going to do any more big shows.”

The concert, part of the Esplanade’s annual Pesta Raya – Malay Festival of Arts, marks his 50th anniversary in music. It is also his first concert in Singapore since 2019.

While he is stepping away from large solo productions, he is not disappearing entirely. “If I feel like singing, I will sing. If I feel like making a song, I will make one,” he says. “I just need to cool down.”

The singer, who holds the Malaysian honorific Dato’, has had a long and illustrious career that has taken him far beyond his beginnings in Malaysia.

He first rose to fame as lead vocalist of Malaysian rock band Headwind from the late 1970s to the 1980s, then successfully reinvented himself as a solo artiste with a completely different sound that blended Malay folk music with Afro-pop rhythms and global worldbeat influences.