These Arooj Aftab songs are the musical elixir your ears need

Smrithi Mohan

03 Jun 2022 00:00 IST

Updated On 03 Jun 2022 07:58 IST

New Update

If you're looking for new music to add to your playlist, listen to these meditative Arooj Aftab songs that will brighten up your dullest days.

Life becomes 10x more interesting and magical when we have a playlist of our favorite artists playing in the background as we go about our chores. Without music, life would be boring and lame. But thanks to artists like Arooj Aftab, there is never a dull day. The world was left asking who the Pakistani artist is after her recent Best Global Music Performance win at the Grammy Awards. It was a moment of pride for all South Asians, proving that art and music always cross borders and make it straight to people's hearts.

Arooj is a Pakistani vocalist, music composer, and producer based in the United States. The artist who lifted the Grammy this year making history as the 'first-ever female Pakistani Grammy winner,' Arooj has been a part of music lovers from the time she released her debut album titled 'Bird Under Water' in 2014 under her own independent label.

One thing that makes her music so transcendental is that she infuses traditional Sufi with Jazz and Folk. Her works include songs based on various musical styles and idioms including jazz, minimalism, and neo-Sufi. She grew up listening to music as her parents would hold musical evenings that she was unfortunately not allowed to, considering it would impact her studies. But that did not stop her from learning as she went on to take online courses. She went on to listen to the music of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Ustad Zakir Hussain, and the American jazz diva Billie Holiday, among others and learned how to play the guitar.

Before winning Grammy, she also worked on the documentary Armed With Faith (2017) as an editor that won a 2018 Emmy Award. Even though one may not have heard most of her songs, her live rendition of Mohabbat might have definitely made it to your ears. Her neo-Sufi version of the song is the lead piece of her album 'Vulture Prince.’ The song that won a Grammy is a ghazal recited in Lahore’s Government College (now Government College University) by Punjab-based poet Hafeez Hoshiyarpuri with poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz in attendance in 1929. Although the song has been performed by well-known ghazal artists in the past, Arooj won the international award this year in a category that was added for the first time this year.

The thing that makes her music so lovable is the fact that they are meditative in the sense that they take you on a peaceful trip breaking you away from your everyday stress.