Arooj Aftab

A highly competitive category, full of highly respected legendary nominees. I am humbled and grateful for this win. Making a deeply personal and crossover music, in Urdu, and being seen for it… feels like a breakthrough. thank you AND congratulations ❤️ pic.twitter.com/FXyth4w9hK

— arooj aftab (@arooj_aftab) April 5, 2022

Arooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooj

She and her band were fantastic at Big Ears, even as an already-fan I was impressed.

i'm on a serious Arooj Aftab and Myriam Gendron kick.

who else sounds like them? long, slow, gorgeous songs ... language doesn't matter.

― alpine static, Thursday, February 17, 2022 8:41 PM (one month ago)

Julie Byrne! Don't know how I didn't make that connection earlier.

what is Julie Byrne up to, for pete's sake

not to take away from Arooj ... super stoked for her, and that tweet is awesome

Congratulations to the sensational @arooj_aftab on being the first Pakistani singer to win a Grammy.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 pic.twitter.com/XFWPGKK1il

— Jemima Goldsmith (@Jemima_Khan) April 5, 2022

Anyone in Chicago want 2 tix for tonight's show? Happy to give them away. Wife got COVID and hate for them to go to waste.

Anyone see a show? Going up to Toronto the week and excited to catch her... at what seems to be the only non festival gig she's got booked.

I saw her live last month in a wonderful setting: a church in Amsterdam on a fully light summer evening. It was just her and two instrumentalists: Maeve Gilchrist on celtic harp and Petros Klampanis on double bass. Both play on some of the tracks of Vulture Prince, but here they carried all of the music, and it was sensational.

https://www.festivalinfo.nl/img/review/big/7848/7uhske9pwbnhlap3ty.jpg

I had expected a chamber music kind of performance, similar to her recent-ish Tiny Desk concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUYJ8_tBSSQ

…and I would have been totally fine with that, but it was nothing of the kind.
It would have been wonderful to hear Arooj sing live within any setup, her voice is amazing, but this bass-harp combo gave an extra dimension to her sound: it added grit and earthiness to the ethereal, making things so much more dynamic. It wasn’t just the bass that did this, mind, it was the interplay. harp and bass were rocking and rolling together, throbbing, percussive, droning - at one point it felt like they were taking off into the stratosphere and carrying us along with them. All the while, Arooj was treating herself to red wine and the audience to red roses. A mesmerizing experience.

This is the same setup, at a (Dutch) festival last October, but here the two instrumentalists are much more restrained still: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPRuWiI2ZPQ

She seems to perform in ever-changing formations tho - clips from other recent performances show her with bass and guitar (at Sintra’s Palácio da Pena - speaking of amazing locations!) and guitar and violin (at Glastonbury).

saw her at Roskilde Festival, wonderful set, Gyan Riley on guitar (doing some wonderful flamenco type shredding) and Petros Klampanis on double bass

kind of a weird stage presence, she insisted on us not taking things too seriously

Woah, didn't even know she was touring... looks like Toronto show is sold out... have fun!

super excited to be seeing her in Montreal tomorrow night!

she insisted on us not taking things too seriously

She was genuinely stunning last night. Her voice is incredible—the album doesn't quite do it justice really. Reminded me that when I played Vulture Prince for my partner her first reaction was "you have to see this kind of music live" (meaning, more or less, qawwali/ghazals), and she was right!

The lineup was Gyan Riley on guitar and for one song some kind of electric...idk, something in the sitar family tree (which I wouldn't have minded hearing more of), and Darian Donovan Thomas on violin, which he also made sound like a synth sometimes. Sounds like the same as Glastonbury. They were both great, though if I had to complain about anything, Riley got a bit more of the spotlight than necessary I felt, a few times I got itchy waiting for Aftab to sing again while he soloed. She has a dryly funny stage presence too

Toronto had those 2 guys and Maeve Gilchrist on harp, too. Great set. The audience was extra hott though - big reactions for every single solo. Neat to see her in a 600 capacity club... wonder if that'll be happening much more, now signed to a bigger label and whatnot.

Wow---makes me wonder how far into a fairly high-profile Western Hemisphere career/possible stardom Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan might have gone, if he'd lived longer---she's got the advantage of (pretty much, of not altogether) starting her career in the West, in Brooklyn, I take it, and her (pretty much, if not altogether) Western Hemisphere line-ups are of her own choosing, it seems, dunno how much choice Khan had in recording with Michael Brook and so on, although there were several collections of the uncut, prewesternized voyages in the 90s: Shanachie's Greatest Hits, for example, and their wilder release, Intoxicated Spirit omg. I dunno about the Real World stuff, never listened much, but remember liking his cut w Eddie Vedder(!) in the midst of Dead Man Walking onscreen, however it may have fared on the soundtrack album. Devotional and Love Songs and Rapture had some okay Western sounds; there was maybe just one rock-ish track on the latter.

Riley got a bit more of the spotlight than necessary I felt, a few times I got itchy waiting for Aftab to sing again while he soloed

have to agree, good as he was

some kind of electric...idk, something in the sitar family tree

I also wonder what it was, here's a bad photo I took, maybe someone can help identify the instrument:

https://i.imgur.com/PuMCQcW.png

Ooh that is actually cooler looker than I realized in a dark & neon-lit club (Aftab made fun of the lighting at one point; I felt kind of bad for the tech, but they were pulling out all the stops to an absurd degree).

Still not sure what it is--I said "sitar family" because iirc it made a sustained, droning noise rather than a something more lute-like. It could be a really simplified veena maybe? I can't remember what his hands were doing while playing it though

I saw her last night in Ljubljana. Beautiful music, crystal clear sound. She could tone down the between-song banter a bit, which I felt broke the spell at times. By all means talk to the audience but I found some of her anecdotes rambling and not as funny as she thought they were. I just wanted them to get on with the music. Wonderful musicians [guitar & violin] + voice, though, obviously.

lol i loved her banter but can see what you mean

I like the idea, as mentioned on here upthread, that she likes to put her audience at ease. But some of her gags and stories were just lame or didn't hit their targets. Oh well, sorry to dwell on that aspect because it was otherwise a very special gig.

I do agree it doesn't really benefit the music

maybe some of it is nervousness

but the music's so good it doesn't really matter

Here's a brief interview with her in this 'culture news' report on Slovenian TV, in which she comes across really well: https://4d.rtvslo.si/arhiv/kultura/174891899 [I'm in the background briefly!]

I love what she says about connecting with the music even though you don't understand the language. I love the idea of someone singing with gentle power in (what is to me) a completely unknown language.

I see what you mean, giraffe, but I saw her last Saturday in Katowice and personally didn't mind her stage banter at all (though she didn't really tell actual anecdotes, more just was vibing with the energy in the room).

TBH it did initially take me out of it to see her being this down-to-earth chill performer pouring herself wine on stage, joking, and taking a selfie video with the audience but I suppose it was only because I had no reference point—I had never seen or heard her speak before, only listened to Vulture Prince a lot since last year, and probably subconsciously projected the heavy emotions in the songs onto the person behind them. So maybe I half-expected a solemn mystic singing behind a haze of smoke—but that's obviously on me!

Actually, now that I think about it, her warmth and laidback attitutde provided a nice counterpoint to the gut punches served repeatedly in the songs (the performance of the actual music was absolutely top notch). She seemed genuinely lovely and like a cool person to hang out with, her band members (Gyan Riley on guitar and Darius Donovan Thomas on violin) too.

Lots of good points,ˈʌglɪɪst preɪ [How do you pronounce this?]. When someone you've never seen or heard live before walks up to the mic you have no idea what kind of person they're going to be and there's a measure of trepidation all round. When she started talking I was taken aback by the contrast between the solemnity of the music and the chilled comedy of the performer between songs (she was unbelievably relaxed at the mic). Maybe we were unlucky with the package of jokes we got... :)

reminds me of Townes Van Zandt on some stages, going back & forth, stark ballads and zings

meanwhile,

Hugely honored to receive the Presidents Pride of Performance Award today wowwww thank you Mr.President @ArifAlvi and H.E US ambassador @Masood__Khan for the nomination

— arooj aftab (@arooj_aftab) August 14, 2022

Her tweet thread about touring and playing to large crowds but still losing money is getting attention

Touring has been amazing. We headlined a ton, had massive turnouts and have proven ourselves in all the markets. Yet still, running 10s of thousands in debt from the tour and I’m being told that it’s “normal”. Why is this normal. This should not be normalized.

— arooj aftab (@arooj_aftab) September 6, 2022

This is after artists already lost so much income during Covid. Now post covid flights fuel visas taxes and hotel prices are outrageous, promoters afraid to raise ticket prices, audiences still nervous to go out… what a fking mess and we are expected to take the hit

— arooj aftab (@arooj_aftab) September 6, 2022

I don't know all the ins and outs but it sounds like a lot of those things are outside anyone's individual control?

Yeah, I mean, that's why it's such a depressing situation, there's not magic bullet solution. Raising ticket prices enough to cover all of those other cost increases is really unlikely to help, it'll just encourage more people to stay home.

That said, I don't know enough about her specific tour to know if this is indeed entirely representative. The "10s of thousands" sound pretty shocking for sure.

The magic bullet solution is twofold: to boycott streaming services and for everyone to get vaccinated

That tweet is ultra depressing. I mean she was on Obama's playlist for chrissakes

I read that more as a riposte to the idea that "touring is how you make money in the music biz" rather than a specific critique of venue prices, even if that seems like the only immediately available solution

obama should give $100,000 to everyone he puts on his playlist

or royalties on his next book

Not sure about other cities, but she played a pretty small venue here in the spring (~200), so am curious if others have seen "massive" turnouts. Tickets were only $31 all-in with venue fees and taxes. I have to imagine her audience is older, which means she can probably stand to raise prices and not lose as many, but I do think her demos have been slower to return to nightlife post-covid.

yeah, i think what she is saying there is "hey i'm doing pretty well and still drowning, help our industry is dying"

obviously i don't think bands playing shows is ever going to disappear, but the one-two punch of predatory streaming and COVID may take out a lot of them ... probably already has and we just don't know it yet.

adding this after seeing Indexed's post: yes, her interpretation of "massive" and proving oneself in markets may be different than others'.

Well, feeling guilty, I just bought VP on vinyl. Didn't realize it had finally been released.

bummer for sure

usually would not advocate for patronage but the margin on a vinyl is not great afaik, so I imagine sending ~2 dollars directly could possibly benefit as much as buying a 30 dollar vinyl

touring should not have a negative margin

I wanted to buy Vulture Prince at her gig - I like buying directly from the artist where possible - but they were charging 40 euros. I want to be a good fan and support her but I couldn't justify spending that much on an album.

Not that that detracts from what she's saying.

I find it hard to believe that many artists are touring at a loss right now, let alone a loss of “tens of thousands” of dollars

yeah, for a three piece... I dunno, should be possible to pay hotels and travel expenses

but then again, it's the music biz

remember when I first read abt members of TLC filing for bankruptcy at the height of their immense commercial sucess (but I digress)

I think they played a lot of festivals, which I could see not paying super well (?). Also, on her list, "visas" stood out to me. I don't know if she has US citizenship or not, but especially if she doesn't, I imagine that is pretty expensive

I see she has a European tour coming up. Possible that they have just had to pre-book (and pay for) lots of plane tickets, visas, hotels, etc. in advance of getting paid?

I thought festivals (and colleges) were the big money makers on tour? That's what I have always heard.

I read that more as a riposte to the idea that "touring is how you make money in the music biz" rather than a specific critique of venue prices, even if that seems like the only immediately available solution

― rob, Wednesday, September 7, 2022 2:46 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Her wording in the two tweets shared above kind of conveys that feeling popular tweets often do where people are meant to be whipped up to "take a stand" against some oppressive societal system or power ("This should not be normalized" & "we are expected to take the hit") so while I agree with you about their likely intention I was a little unsure myself, hence my own initial response. Also I do wonder how universal her experience is, not to push back against it or anything but there are a lot of baseline variables depending on who you are, where you're going and what you need to bring with you.

I find it hard to believe that many artists are touring at a loss right now, let alone a loss of “tens of thousands” of dollars

― zacata, Thursday, September 8, 2022 7:34 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

why is it hard to believe that artists are touring at a loss?

festival guarantees are much much smaller than a regular gig for all the small font artists. if an artist wants to book hotels instead of sleeping in cans or buses, a 20+ day tour can run up thousands of dollars, even if all three band members share a room.

the venue also takes home 50% of the door and 100% of the bar for the vast majority of artists who aren’t at the superstar level. and in rooms like the ones aftab is playing, you basically have to sell out to see any money at all

50% of the door is a generous estimate that not every artist gets, they usually just get a flat guarantee (given the budget that a lot of small venues work with, that number is prob much smaller than you think it is) and the promoters get the ticket proceeds

Lots of venues take a percentage of merch sales too