Rahat Fateh Ali Khan

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan is a singer from Faisalabad, best known for Qawwali, the Sufi devotional form. He is one of the most popular and highest-paid singers in Pakistan. He is the son of Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan, the grandson of the Qawwali singer Fateh Ali Khan and the nephew of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who began training him at the age of seven.

He first performed in public in 1979, at the age of nine, on the anniversary of his grandfather's death. By fifteen he was a key member of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's Qawwali group, and he toured the United Kingdom with his uncle in 1985. Besides Qawwali he sings ghazals and light music, and he is a leading playback voice in Hindi and Pakistani films. His Bollywood debut was “Mann Ki Lagan” in Paap (2003), a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan composition first recorded for an unreleased album.

His non-film work has travelled further still. “Zaroori Tha”, from the album Back 2 Love (2014), became the first original non-film music video from the subcontinent to pass 100 million YouTube views, and it later reached a billion. In April 2012 his concerts at Wembley Arena and the Manchester Arena drew a combined audience of more than 20,000.

He also sang on Hollywood soundtracks. With Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam he worked on Dead Man Walking (1995). He also worked with James Horner on The Four Feathers (2002) and sang on Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (2006). At the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize concert he became the first Pakistani to perform at a Nobel concert, singing “Tumhe Dillagi” and “Mast Qalandar”. On Coke Studio, “Afreen Afreen” with Momina Mustehsan passed 300 million YouTube views, the first Pakistani song to do so.