Who is Arooj Aftab? First Woman Of Pakistani Descent To Win Grammy

Pakistani-origin artiste Arooj Aftab’s track Mohabbat bagged her a Grammy for Best Global Music Performance at the 64^th Edition of the award. Aftab who moved to the United States to study music has worked as an editor and was producing music in New York. Other artists nominated alongside her were Femi Kuti, Wizkid and Tems, Angélique Kidjo and Burna Boy, and Yo-Yo Ma and Angélique Kidjo.

She is the first woman of Pakistani origin to win a Grammy award; the artiste during her acceptance speech expressed gratitude for those who “made her music their own”. The musician says that her music is about things that broke her and put her back together.

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Who is Arooj Aftab?

• Aftab was born to Pakistani expatriate parents in Saudi Arabia. The artiste had no formal training when she first pursued music; she is an autodidact guitar player. She was 10 when her family moved to Lahore, Pakistan.
• Reportedly, she developed her style of singing while listening to Begum Akhtar, Mariah Carey, Hariprasad Chaurasia and Billie Holiday. It was because of Aftab’s renditions of Hallelujah and Mera Pyar which went viral and launched the Pakistani indie music scene.
• Aftab moved to the United States in 2005 to study music. An alumna of Berklee College of Music, the singer draws inspiration from poets like Rumi, Hafeez Hoshiarpuri, Mirza Ghalib and Chand Bibi and many more.
• The musician began her career in 2010 after moving to New York. She has been part of New York’s jazz and “new music” scene for quite some time. In 2011, she was included in the "100 Composers Under 40" selection launched by National Public Radio and WQXR-FM’s Q2. The two are contemporary classical music internet radio stations.
• Her first album titled Bird Under Water was released in 2014 while the next album, Siren Islands, was released four years later in 2018.
• The singer who primarily sings in Urdu told in an interview that her approach to music is minimalist and simple; she does not like to have a lot of verses, she said.
• The singer has collaborated with many coveted artists and has also sung for Hindi cinema. Aftab sang the song Insaaf from film Talvar. The lyrics were written by Gulzar and the music was composed by Vishal Bhardwaj.
• Aftab’s third album Vulture Prince came out in 2021 and since then topped many charts including those of publications like Al Jazeera. The Grammy-winning track Mohabbat is from her third album which made its way into Barack Obama’s annual summer playlist as well.
• The artist has also worked as an editor on a documentary titled Armed With Faith (2017) for which she won an Emmy Award in the News & Documentary category.