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Arooj Aftab | The Guardian

  • ️Sat Jul 13 2024

July 2024

  • Arooj Aftab at Omeara, London.

    Artist of the week

    Arooj Aftab review – crackling wit and songs of elegiac beauty

    Boundaries disappear as the extraordinary Grammy-winning Pakistani-American singer showcases her lithe latest album, Night Reign – and hands out whiskey, T-shirts and roses…

May 2024

  • Delicate warmth … Arooj Aftab.

    Global album of the month

    Arooj Aftab: Night Reign review – all the heat and mystery of nocturnal life

    Mercurial and moody soundscapes are infused with wistful romance in one of the Grammy-winning singer and composer’s most spirited records to date

April 2024

  • ‘Running tens of thousands in debt from the tour and I’m being told that it’s normal’ … Arooj Aftab performing in Brooklyn in June 2023.

    ‘The working class can’t afford it’: the shocking truth about the money bands make on tour

    As Taylor Swift tops $1bn in tour revenue, musicians playing smaller venues are facing pitiful fees and frequent losses. Should the state step in to save our live music scene?

December 2023

  • Monumental sounds … Deena Abdelwahed, Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily, and Ali Sethi

    Best music of 2023

    The 10 best global albums of 2023

    Dragonchild delivered a genre-hopping debut, Thandi Ntuli collaborated with Carlos Niño on a stripped back, joyous record and Titanic conjured visionary free-improv chamber pop

March 2023

  • Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily.

    Global album of the month

    Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily: Love in Exile review – a trio in striking harmony

    The Pakistani American singer’s follow-up to breakthrough album Vulture Prince is a tender, softly triumphant reunion with her former collaborators

March 2022

  • Arooj Aftab: ‘My music is a product of my experiences’

    ‘My music is singular to me’: Arooj Aftab, the brightest new star at this year’s Grammys

    Informed by Urdu verse, mythological vultures and her brother’s death, the US-Pakistani musician’s latest album is unexpectedly up for one of the ‘big four’ prizes – and she’s only just left her day job. She explains how it became ‘a letting go’

February 2022

  • Arooj Aftab at the Brudenell Social Club, Leeds.

    Kitty Empire's artist of the week

    Arooj Aftab review – a mesmerising ambient jazz threesome

    Flanked by just bass and harp, the Grammy-nominated, Brooklyn-based Pakistani artist wows Leeds with a pared-down account of her latest album

June 2021

  • (L-R) Erika de Casier, Nick Cave and Arlo Parks.

    Best culture of 2021 so far

    The best albums of 2021 so far

    From drill’s high watermark to Tuareg rock, Colombian pop and London jazz, here are our music editors’ picks of the best LPs from the first half of the year