He took a devotional form sung for centuries in Sufi shrines and made it electrify rock festivals and film soundtracks from Tokyo to London. His voice - vast, agile, capable of hours at full intensity - turned qawwali into a global lingua franca before most of the West knew the word.
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SpotifyAlbums 24
CLChain of Light
NVNusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Vol. 2
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Musicians born in the 1940s 1
About this person
Born in West Punjab in 1948, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan made his first public performance at 15, at his father's chelum. By 1971 he'd become head of the family qawwali party, weaving his own techniques - sargam, khayal, a driving sense of rhythm - into a centuries-old tradition. An early-80s signing with Birmingham's Oriental Star Agencies opened the door: he began releasing albums and film scores across Europe, India, Japan, Pakistan, and the United States, collaborating with Western artists and touring over 40 countries. The man NPR named one of the 50 Great Voices and Rolling Stone placed among the 200 greatest singers ever didn't just export qawwali - he rewired the DNA of Pakistani pop, Indian pop, and Bollywood music, all while remaining a master of Hindustani classical forms. He died in 1997, sixteen years after the world started listening.
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