“SISTER TO SISTER, ARTISTS TO ARTISTS: SEEK

Closing day two of the XP Music Futures, singercomposer-producer Arooj Aftab joined Saudi rapper Jara onstage for Maestro Xperience: In Conversation with Arooj Aftab. Aftab made history in 2022 as the first-ever Pakistani artist to win a Grammy. Born in Riyadh, she returned to Saudi Arabia for the first time in decades to play her final show of 2022 at Riyadh’s Soundstorm Music Festival. “It feels very full circle. Twenty-seven years away from Saudi, it’s very surreal.”

As Aftab explained to Jara, the session’s moderator, “home is a lot of different places.” Growing up in Riyadh and Lahore and building her career in New York City, she sings in Urdu and English and draws inspiration from musical styles, including jazz, minimalism, and neo-Sufi.

“There are people like us who have inherited many different heritages, and that’s okay. Our work reflects that. It’s less geographical; it’s the feeling of a place or the people you know there. Home can be anywhere.” Aftab continues, “There are not many people like us, doing what we do. It’s constantly teaching people how to treat you.

Some white guitar players play three chords and can headline Coachella. We have to educate people and the press everywhere we go.”

Aftab’s Grammy win, though, is validating: “It’s such an insanely romantic, mainstream, huge thing that suddenly gives you so much attention. However, it really solidified all the work that I have been doing in the dark. It was reassuring and motivating. As artists, we go through imposter syndrome: what is this thing that I am doing? Is it even good? Then a big thing like this happens, giving you recognition—and makes me want to keep making more!”

She closed with advice for Jara and aspiring musicians, “sister to sister, artists to artists”:

“Consistently build a body of work.”

“Seek proper representation.”

“You can make great music album after album. It’s a business. Seven, eight albums [were] like a peacock dancing in the forest—no one sees that. It’s a domino effect: if one big publication said it was good, then everyone said it was good. Putting out records is important.”