Almaty’s New Pop Order: Inside Kazakhstan’s Resurgent Sound

Dequine operates at the center of Kazakhstan’s contemporary sound. Performing under the moniker, Almaty-based singer and songwriter Danelya Sadykova has built a catalog that bends R&B, soul, pop, and house over clean electronic production. Tracks like “Matcha chai”—which generated over 469,000 platform videos—and the rap freestyle “Wassup” established her reach before she turned toward sleeker single runs with “До утра”, “Vintage”, and 2026’s “Хороша”. Her live pull reflects that trajectory: along with solo dates at Almaty’s Baluan Sholak Arena, she took the stage as the sole domestic artist sharing a lineup day with Gorillaz at Park Live Almaty, alongside appearances at multi-day showcases like OYU Fest.

The Stadium Scale

Pop in Kazakhstan fills massive domestic spaces without needing approval from abroad. Sadraddin (Sadraddin Galymzhanuly Bolat), a music-school-trained vocalist from Shymkent, proved that domestic appetite by drawing 12,000 fans to Almaty Arena in September 2023, followed by a solo concert at Almaty Central Stadium in September 2024 that pulled 30,000 spectators.

Sadraddin’s catalog is built primarily in Kazakh, occasionally incorporating Russian and Turkish elements. His breakout single “Алия” landed in 2020, and the single “Aiga qarap” held positions across Apple Music, Spotify, VK Music, and Yandex charts for 20 weeks. His 2024 video for “Melodrama (Çiki Çiki)”, shot in Turkey, drove more than 67 million views on YouTube, feeding into a run that generated nearly 97 million streams across platforms between 2024 and 2025. His 2026 singles “Altynym” and “Bolme” continue to anchor the local market ahead of his scheduled album release.

Miras Zhugunussov commands a similar grip on domestic audiences. After performing from childhood alongside his family in the Zhugunussov Brothers, he launched his solo output with 2019’s Andetemin EP before topping national charts in late 2022 with the dual singles “Зымыран” and “Сен туралы”. By April 2023, Zhugunussov pulled over 6,000 attendees to his solo show in Almaty. Working with producer Aden Margulan, his output bridges the emotional focus of tracks like “Шыда”, “Ойлай берем”, and “Qymbattym” with full-length projects like the Sen-Em EP and his 2026 single “Үйім”.

Boy Groups, Girl Bands, and Bedroom Production

The group format has also re-engineered itself around self-direction and club rhythms. The five-piece boy group ALPHA—formed through JUZ Entertainment’s Project X and featuring members Qozzy, Dark, N.B., I, and A.Boo—operates without an in-house producer, collaborating instead with Ten Label. Blending rap, pop, and R&B, they headlined festival stages and launched two domestic tours after picking up Breakthrough of the Year at the Ticketon awards. Their single “KIM OL?” picked up 4.3 million views in six months, followed by track drops like “ZHOLDAR”, “SULU”, and the Karaganda-shot video “PUMP IT”, leading into their late 2026 single “QYZGANAMYN”.

Ten Label is building solo voices too. SAPAR — Saparkhan Quanyshuly — made his debut on the label in September 2025 with “Ghost”, a track he wrote himself and delivers in Kazakh, switching between rap and sung hooks over a beat by Deem-H. Adil Kazkenov, who also directed ALPHA’s “JIBER” performance video, shot the clip. The view count is still small, just under 8,000, but the response is out of proportion to it: 449 likes and 132 comments, written in Kazakh, Russian, Uzbek and Spanish. “Next level of Qpop,” reads the most-liked one. Another listener says they had never heard a song like this entirely in Kazakh. For a first single, that is a loud arrival.

On the other end of the vocal pop spectrum is UMAY, a five-piece girl group created by producer Alua Konarova. Drawing members from Almaty, East Kazakhstan, Kyzylorda, Shymkent, and Aktau—Erkezhan Rakhimova, Sabina Zhienishkhanova, Aknur Satybaldy, Adel Amandyldy, and Bibimaryam Serik—the group combines early-2000s R&B arrangements with synth-pop and rap cadences. After introducing themselves with the tracks “TRUE” and “QUEEN” in mid-2026, their single “SEZIM” highlighted their choreography and fast-tempo delivery.

Almaty’s independent circuit also fosters sharp DIY voices like meow! dammit (Yasmin Guliyeva). Writing, producing, and cutting early vocals through standard headphone microphones, Guliyeva caught national attention when singles like “The Aura” and “Lotta F*g Money” (co-written with Daniel Woods) spread rapidly across TikTok. Alongside slots at Yandex Music’s massive “Studio Go” project on Almaty’s Arbat, she delivered a rapid sequence of 2025 and 2026 singles including “Molly Santana”, “Red Bull 64 Bars”, “No Games”, and “Get The Bag”, anchoring an R&B-leaning style defined by casual, direct delivery.

Cross-Border Reach

While most acts focus inward on the Almaty and Astana club and arena circuits, artists with regional ties have occasionally crossed over. Pop singer Amirchik (Amirkhan Batabayev) moved from acoustic smartphone covers to international visibility when his single “Эта любовь” entered the global Shazam-200 and topped charts across Asia. Even with that international footprint, Batabayev maintains ties to the regional scene with Central Asian video collaborations, his Kyrgyz-language track “Кандай”, and 2026 releases like “Барамын сага” and “КЫРГЫЗСТАН”.

On the ground in Almaty, however, the momentum remains local, driven by the live rooms at Baluan Sholak Arena, the OYU festival stages, and the relentless stream of self-produced drops.

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Almaty’s New Pop Order: Inside Kazakhstan’s Resurgent Sound

The Stadium Scale

Boy Groups, Girl Bands, and Bedroom Production

Cross-Border Reach

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