Fresh off of her historic Grammy win, the Brooklyn-based Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab has added another feather to her cap with a debut at the much-touted Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
She graced the California desert with a set that centered her melodious Urdu lyricism, a barrier-breaking move as she became the first Pakistani to play the prestigious festival.
For Aftab, the language barrier no longer exists.
Photo: AFP
“This is a door that’s opened,” she said.
The 37-year-old — who just released a cover of Spanish flamenco revisionist Rosalia’s Di Mi Nombre — sees a revolution in popular music, with artists sailing freely past genre and borders.
“There’s a movement happening in the music industry at large,” she told reporters on the grounds of Coachella, where she delivered a moving performance of her work that fuses ancient Sufi traditions with inflections of folk, jazz and minimalism.
“The audience and the musicians are creating music and the audiences are listening to music with a lot of freedom in their minds. Less genre-genre, less border-border,” she said. “It’s so free, and open, and really, really beautiful.”
She credits the Latinx community for making huge inroads in this respect, citing Rosalia along with Becky G, Karol G, J Balvin and Bad Bunny as influential in the transformation.
“The trap movement definitely changed the way listeners listen,” Aftab said, referring to the explosion of southern US hip-hop that later made its way into Latin America and fused with reggaeton.
The surge of Latin music on US airwaves and especially on streaming platforms “created a big opening in the minds of listeners in America,” she said. “They now listen to music that they don’t understand, and it’s fine. They love it. That’s a big step.”
Aftab said that opening has allowed her to feel more liberated with her own creations, putting out music based on emotions, without limitation.
“It’s a personal music,” she said. “It’s not ‘my country, my country’ — it’s global music. It’s everything that we feel, it’s all the people that we meet.
“Whatever makes my heart sing is in the music.”
With three studio albums, Aftab mere weeks ago made history in becoming the first Pakistani solo vocalist to nab a Grammy, winning for her song Mohabbat in the Best Global Performance category.
She was also nominated in the prestigious Best New Artist field — although that award went, as expected, to pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo.
However, Aftab is basking in the moment of recognition, savoring her career accolades as well as her two performance dates at the premier Coachella festival.
“It feels really amazing, it’s a high — it’s a high moment in my career,” the singer said. “I’ve been working towards this moment and imagining that this moment would come, or not.”
“And it did, which is miraculous,” she added.
She is also stoked to be back in front of live audiences, with Coachella returning after a three-year, COVID-19 pandemic-induced hiatus.
Featuring artists from all over the world, this year’s Coachella poster is a reflection of music’s’ globalization and genre fluidity.
For Aftab, that’s a big win: “This is a door that’s opened, for sure and I’m going to leave the door open, for sure.”
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
RSS