Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Urdu/Punjabi: نصرت فتح علی خان), born Pervez Fateh Ali Khan (13 October 1948 – 16 August 1997), was a Pakistani vocalist, musician and music director primarily a singer of Qawwali, a form of Sufi Islamic devotional music. Widely considered one of the greatest voices ever recorded, he possessed an extraordinary range of vocal abilities and could perform at a high level of intensity for several hours He belonged to the Patiala gharana extending the 600-year old Qawwali tradition of his family, Khan is widely credited with introducing Qawwali music to international audiences. He is popularly known as "Shehnshah-e-Qawwali", meaning "The King of Kings of Qawwali".Born in Faisalabad, Khan had his first public performance at the age of 15, at his father's chelum. He became the head of the family qawwali party in 1971. He was signed by Oriental Star Agencies, Birmingham, England in the early 1980s. Khan went on to release movie scores and albums in Europe, India, Japan, Pakistan and the U.S. He engaged in collaborations and experiments with Western artists, becoming a well-known world music artist. He toured extensively, performing in over 40 countries. In addition to popularising Qawwali music, he also had a big impact on contemporary South Asian popular music, including Pakistani pop, Indi-pop and Bollywood music.