AROOJ AFTAB
Genres: Pop, Art Song, Folk, World Fusion • Saudi Arabia

Pakistani singer, composer, and producer Arooj Aftab creates a captivating blend of neo-Sufi, classical minimalism, jazz, electronic music, and other disparate styles. As a teenager in the early 2000s, she played a significant role in helping to develop her country's independent music movement, then moved to New York City, where she became active as a film composer at the end of the decade. Throughout the 2010s, Aftab's broad stylistic mix was reflected in her performances, which ranged from major venues like New York's Lincoln Center and Berlin's Haus der Kulturen der Welt to smaller jazz and indie rock clubs. Her choice of collaborators is similarly diverse and includes names like Esperanza Spalding, DJ /rupture, and Vijay Iyer. Her first two albums, 2014's Bird Under Water and 2018's Siren Islands, earned critical acclaim and in 2022, Aftab became the first-ever Pakistani artist to win a Grammy Award when the song "Mohabbat," read more...