Rahat Fateh Ali Khan

Born in Faisalabad in Pakistan’s Punjab, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan belongs to the line of qawwals from the Fateh Ali Khan family: he is the son of Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan and the nephew of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Trained in qawwali—the Sufi devotional repertoire—since childhood, he approaches it with a vocal style rooted in the Hindustani classical tradition. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan performed publicly at a very young age and, as a teenager, joined his uncle’s ensemble, accompanying them on tours in the United Kingdom from 1985. From the late 1990s he established a solo trajectory encompassing qawwali, ghazal, Sufi music and film songs. His entry into playback singing for Hindi cinema came with “Mann Ki Lagan” in Paap (2003), and his voice has since circulated regularly between Indian and Pakistani productions. At the same time he developed a non-film repertoire—most notably the album Back 2 Love (2014)—and engaged in crossovers with other scenes, from Coke Studio Pakistan to collaborations tied to The Four Feathers (2002) and Joyful Noise (2002). For Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, the qawwali heritage remains central to a style that blends vocal improvisation, Sufi poetry and more direct formats of South Asian popular music.