- Posted on: June 17, 2013 | 
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Google Translation: اُردو | 中文
On Friday, the Sufi souls of Islamabad rocked to the folk tune of “Live in Chicago”, serenaded by Arieb Azhar’s soulful voice. Adults, teenagers and children sprawled across the lawn at Kuch Khaas, sipping cool mint lemonade, swayed gently to the beat.
This was the debut performance of Arieb Azhar's album of the same name, and is a recording of one of his live concerts at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago in 2012. Before Arieb, a well known personality from the hit show Coke Studio, took center stage, “Malang Party”, a small band hailing from Islamabad, got the crowd warmed up, and by the time Arieb appeared onto a stage, the crowd was ready for his electric and impassioned performance. The bass, flute and tabla all fused together perfectly to support some of Sufi poetry’s greatest classics such as “Bulleyaki Jana Main Kaun.”
It is hard to define the genre of Arieb’s music; they call it ‘urban folk’, ‘Sufism inspired’, ‘Bosnian classical music’, or maybe it is just “world music”. Nevertheless, Arieb Azhar is an artist, a lover of Sufi poetry, a traveler and most importantly a humanist, something that is reflected in his melodic voice and music
