Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
| Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan | |
|---|---|
Khan performing at Royal Albert Hall in 1987
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| Background information | |
| Native name | نصرت فتح علی خان |
| Birth name | Parvez Fateh Ali Khan |
| Also known as | Shahenshah-e-Qawwali |
| Born |
13 October 1948 Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan |
| Died | 16 August 1997 (aged 48) London, England, UK |
| Genres | |
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| Instruments |
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| Years active | 1965–1997 |
| Labels | |
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Urdu/Punjabi: نصرت فتح علی خان; 13 October 1948 – 16 August 1997), was a Pakistani musician, primarily a singer of Qawwali, the devotional music of the Sufis. He possessed an extraordinary range of vocal abilities and could perform at a high level of intensity for several hours. 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 "Shahenshah-e-Qawwali", meaning "The King of Kings of Qawwali".
Born in Faisalabad, Khan had his first public performance at the age of 16, 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 US. He engaged in collaborations and experiments with Western artists, becoming a well-known world music artist. He toured extensively, performing in over 40 countries.
Khan was born in a Punjabi Muslim family in Faisalabad in 1948, shortly after the partition of India in 1947 during which his family had migrated to Pakistan from their native city of Jalandhar in East Punjab, British India (now in Punjab, India). Before partition, his family lived in their ancestral house at Basti Sheikh, Jalandhar. He was the fifth child and first son of Fateh Ali Khan, a musicologist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and qawwal. Khan's family, which included four older sisters and a younger brother, Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan, grew up in central Faisalabad. The tradition of qawwali in the family had passed down through successive generations for almost 600 years. Initially, his father did not want Khan to follow the family's vocation. He had his heart set on Nusrat choosing a much more respectable career path and becoming a doctor or engineer, because he felt Qawwali artists had low social status. However, Khan showed such an aptitude for and interest in Qawwali, that his father finally relented. He began by learning the tabla before moving on to vocals. In 1964, Khan's father died, leaving his musical education under the supervision of his paternal uncles, Mubarak Ali Khan and Salamat Ali Khan. He is the uncle of singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.
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