Arooj Aftab is the second Pakistani after Mekaal Hasan, who studied in Berklee School Of  Music on a Steve Vai Scholarship. She is an acclaimed Sufi Musician, Vocalist and Songwriter and has paid tribute to Sufi Legends like Abida Parveen and Reshma.

The famous western musician Steve Vai has said about Arooj: “A girl like this, with drive and ability and goals, she’s going to inspire a lot of people. That’s how you get evolution.”

I am sharing here today his latest new live performance, and wondering If she should be part of Coke Studio Season 4 or not ? would definitely like to hear from you as some/many people also call this artist ‘over-rated’. What do you say ? Over-rated or under-rated ? Is she really a Coke Studio material ? or I have lost my mind today.

Enjoy the performance now: *not easy stuff to digest* (more…)

Women in the Pakistani Rock Scene

By Havi Zayed

A month ago while I was looking out for new Pakistani bands and artists I managed to stumble upon a song called Moray Saiyan from a female Punjabi singer known as Abeer Hashmi. It was a rock song and as I listened to it a few times I realised it was one of the very few rock songs I had heard from female Pakistani artists. The last one I had heard was Uljhan from Maha which was more of a tribute to evanescence. The track ‘I try’ sung by Arooj Aftab was also one of the better rock tracks I had heard from a female artist. In all there were only 6 female artists I knew about who had any interest in rock music… (more…)

Song: Udhero Na
Artist : Arooj Aftab
Video Director  : Anum Awan