Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Qawwali Music

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was famous for Qawwali music, Islamic devotional music, in Pakistan. He was born in Faisalabad, Pakistan on October 13, 1948 and dies on August 16, 1997. Qawwali music has been in the family business for generations. His family has been preforming Qawwali music for over 600 years. In 1971, he became the leader of his Qawwali party after the death of his father. Forty days after the death of his father, he preformed his first performance called, "Chehlum." When he was leader of the party he preformed his first public performance called, "jashn-e-baharan." This was organized by the Radio Pakistan. Nusrat's first major hit was the song, "Haq Ali Ali."

This video is Nusrat singing "Haq Ali Ali:"


This video is one of the songs from Nusrat's album called Mustt Mustt:



Nusrat was awarded the "Legends" award at the UK Asian Music Awards. TIME Magazine lists him as the top 12 Artist and Thinkers in the last 60 years. A news magazine focusing on Asia wrote about Nusrat and said:
"He preformed Qawwali as nobody else of his generation did."

He preformed to Western audiences around the world including the US and Europe. Jeff Buckley, an American rock singer, said before he preformed a song:

"Nusrat, he's my Elvis."

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan died on August 16, 1997 in a hospital in London, England of heart failure. Nusrat had a total of 125 albums throughout his career.

In 2005, People formed a group in NYC that preformed Nusrat's qawwali music.