1. Arooj Aftab is a Pakistani-American singer, composer, and producer.
22 Facts About Arooj Aftab
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Arooj Aftab has worked in various musical styles and idioms, including jazz and minimalism.
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Arooj Aftab became the first-ever Pakistani artist to win a Grammy Award.
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Arooj Aftab was born to Pakistani parents expatriated in Saudi Arabia.
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Arooj Aftab taught herself the guitar and gradually acquired her singing style while listening to Billie Holiday, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Mariah Carey, and Begum Akhtar.
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At that time, Arooj Aftab lived in a country where access to Western online platforms was difficult, and the infrastructure for independent music was lacking.
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Arooj Aftab moved to the United States at the age of 19 in 2005 and earned a degree in music production and engineering at Boston's Berklee College of Music.
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Arooj Aftab moved to New York in 2010 and began working as an editor and scoring films.
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Since her graduation in 2010, Arooj Aftab has lived there, being part of the city's jazz and "new music" scene.
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Arooj Aftab worked as an editor on the documentary Armed With Faith, winning a 2018 Emmy Award afterward.
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In 2020, Arooj Aftab sang, among other vocalists, on Residente's Latin Grammy Award-winning single "Antes Que El Mundo Se Acabe".
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Arooj Aftab won a Grammy in 2022 for her song "Mohabbat".
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Arooj Aftab has performed at notable music venues such as the Barbican, the Chan Centre, the Lincoln Center, the Andy Warhol Museum, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, The Kitchen, Poisson Rouge, and the Museum of Modern Art.
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Arooj Aftab has performed at international music festivals such as Coachella, Glastonbury, Primavera Sound Barcelona, Roskilde Festival, Big Ears Festival, The Ecstatic Music Festival, the San Francisco Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, Pitchfork Music Festival and the Newport Folk Festival.
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In 2022, Arooj Aftab performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts's Temple of Dendur, and at The Broad's 2022 Summer Happenings series.
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Arooj Aftab's music has been described as a blend of jazz fusion, jazz, electronica, neo-Sufi, folk, Hindustani classical, classical music, indie pop, minimalism, and acoustic music.
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Arooj Aftab told the Los Angeles Times that she had aspired that Vulture Prince would "transcend boundaries".
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Arooj Aftab has mentioned Abbey Lincoln, Abida Parveen, Anoushka Shankar, Begum Akhtar, Esperanza Spalding, Jeff Buckley, Julius Eastman, Meshell Ndegeocello, Morton Feldman, and Terry Riley as her influences.
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Lyrically, Arooj Aftab has cited Asian poets as influences such as Rumi, Mirza Ghalib, and Hafeez Hoshiarpuri and uses Urdu Ghazal.
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In October 2023, Arooj Aftab signed the Artists4Ceasefire open letter to Joe Biden, President of the United States, calling for a ceasefire of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and for a release of Israeli hostages.
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Arooj Aftab raises her voice for gender equality in the music industry.
22.
In 2024 Arooj Aftab joined the Global Citizen action platform dedicated to achieving the end of extreme poverty, performing her song "Diya Hai" from her 2022 album Vulture Prince.