Arooj Aftab has everyone in a pickle with a tweet where she asked her followers to stop associating her with Pakistani music, or calling her an ‘Urdu singer’.
The Grammy award winning singer had tweeted:
“Pakistani singer arooj aftab…… Urdu singer arooj aftab….. arooj Aftab’s amazing Urdu singing… like. It’s fine I guess? But can a person of color musician ever just get to be without this tag to whatever someone else is presuming is our root or heritage.”
Pakistani singer arooj aftab…… Urdu singer arooj aftab….. arooj Aftab’s amazing Urdu singing… like. It’s fine I guess? But can a person of color musician ever just get to be without this tag to whatever someone else is presuming is our root or heritage
Twitter users were confused by this because as some pointed out, she had built up fame in Western countries using Urdu ghazals like ‘Mohabbat’.
One user had written:
“Nobody calls you an urdu singer in pakistan. they call you that in majority english speaking countries, where your claim to fame was an urdu ghazal. your lyrics didn’t come to that audience naturally. they recognize you geographically. we all do that with foreign language music.”
nobody calls you an urdu singer in pakistan. they call you that in majority english speaking countries, where your claim to fame was an urdu ghazal. your lyrics didn’t come to that audience naturally. they recognize you geographically. we all do that with foreign language music.
Don’t get what’s wrong w being called an Urdu / Pakistani singer when you’re performing in US/UK etc. Obv an American singer isn’t gonna be called an American singer when they’re performing in US but they would in another country. Has nothing to do w being a person of color. https://t.co/kJlAnXEgwm
love Arooj’s music but you cannot profit off of traditional Urdu Pakistani songs and then not be associated with them. no one calls Krewella Pakistani singers, ’cause they don’t profit off of their Pakistani image. https://t.co/5oKDDTFiC3
I’m not familiar with her work but a quick Google search tells me that covering Urdu Ghazals, sung by old Pakistani artists, is her shtick. If she loathes being associated with the tags Pakistani and Urdu then maybe giving up nods to both in her performance will be very helpful. https://t.co/jmqKNePDrQ
But Aftab had to clarify in her next tweets that she was not being anti-Pakistani, nor was she criticising her own roots, but her tweets were addressing the Western media who push her into a georgraphical context, which makes it easier for her to be gate-kept.
“Oh f***k this tweet really awakened the “she’s anti Pakistani!!!” sentiment. Great. I’m not talking about erasing or disowning roots and heritage. while touring eu/uk at the moment, I feel like pushing back on being ONLY allowed to exist in a geographic and linguistic context. This makes it easy for them to other-ize, exclude us and overlook what is achieved, and to gate keep/ glass wall what is further achievable.”
pushing back on being ONLY allowed to exist in a geographic and linguistic context. This makes it easy for them to other-ize, exclude us and overlook what is achieved, and to gate keep/ glass wall what is further achievable.
The organisers of music’s Grammy Awards on Friday announced an end to the so-called “secret” committees that have led to allegations that the highest honours in the industry are open to rigging.
The Recording Academy said that nominations for the next Grammy Awards in January 2022 will be selected by all of its more than 11,000 voting members, instead of by committees of 15 to 30 industry experts whose names were not revealed.
The Academy was slammed last year when Canadian artist The Weeknd got zero Grammy nominations, even though his critically acclaimed album After Hours was one of the biggest sellers of 2020.
The Weeknd, in a Twitter post last November, said “The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency.”
The Recording Academy said in a statement on Friday that the changes were significant and were made “to ensure that the Grammy Awards rules and guidelines are transparent and equitable.”
Allegations that the Grammy nominations process is tainted were made in a legal complaint filed in early 2019 by the former chief executive of the Recording Academy, Deborah Dugan.
At the time, the Academy dismissed as “categorically false, misleading and wrong” Dugan’s claims that its members pushed artists they have relationships with. Dugan was later fired.
American pop star Halsey, also shut out of the 2021 Grammys, last year called the nominations process “elusive” and said she was “hoping for more transparency or reform.”
Former One Direction singer Zayn Malik called in March for an end to “secret committees.”
“I’m keeping the pressure on and fighting for transparency and inclusion. We need to make sure we are honouring and celebrating ‘creative excellence’ of all,” Malik tweeted hours ahead of the 2021 Grammy Awards ceremony.
.@recordingacad are moving in inches and we need to move in miles. I’m keeping the pressure on & fighting for transparency & inclusion. We need to make sure we are honoring and celebrating “creative excellence” of ALL. End the secret committees. Until then … #fuckthegrammys
Malik had also lashed out the awards saying: “Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination considerations. Next year I’ll send you a basket of confectionery.”
Fuck the grammys and everyone associated. Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination considerations. Next year I’ll send you a basket of confectionary.
The Recording Academy on Friday also said it was adding two new Grammy categories — for best global music performance, and best Latin urban music album — bringing to 86 the total number of Grammy Awards each year.
Women won every major Grammy at Sunday’s history-making gala, a joyful night for music’s biggest stars after a devastating year for the industry, with Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion and Taylor Swift triumphing at the socially distanced event anchored by electrifying performances.
It was a monumental night for Beyonce, who broke the record for most career wins by a female artist with 28 trophies.
“As an artist, I believe it’s my job and all of our jobs to reflect the times. And it’s been such a difficult time,” Beyonce said, with her husband Jay-Z looking on, as she received her history-making award. “So I wanted to uplift, encourage, celebrate all of the beautiful Black queens and kings that continue to inspire me and inspire the whole world.”
Meanwhile, Swift became the first woman to win the coveted Album of the Year prize three times, this year for Folklore, the first of her twin quarantine releases.
Rap sensation Megan Thee Stallion charmed while accepting her three awards including Best New Artist — and disarmed viewers with a performance that set the Los Angeles stage ablaze.
Megan and Queen Bey earned two awards together, for their remix of the rapper’s smash hit Savage.
The Houston rapper teased with that track along with her single Body, before serving up a thirst trap of a duet with none other than Cardi B, both of them in metallic gear that left little to the imagination. The audacious duo performed WAP, a gyrating, thigh-baring celebration of female sexuality that ended atop an enormous bed.
The night featured a host of impressive performances featuring Dua Lipa, DaBaby, Swift, Bad Bunny and Record of the Year winner Billie Eilish, among others — a line-up that kicked off with chest-baring Harry Styles, who won his first-ever award. It was hosted by Trevor Noah.
The ceremony, which fell nearly a year to the day after Covid-19 grounded tours and forced performance venues to close, stood as a concerted effort by the music world to try to move past a crushing 2020 by celebrating its biggest stars.
And there is perhaps no one bigger than Queen Bey, whose Best R&B Performance award for her summer track Black Parade, a homage to Black power and heritage, sent her into the Grammy record books.
It was a less shiny night than predicted for British star Dua Lipa, who was shut out of the major categories but won Best Pop Vocal Album, for her sparkly disco ball of a record released just as the pandemic took hold.
Though most of the rock fields were unprecedentedly dominated by women, The Strokes won for Best Rock Album for The New Abnormal, their first Grammy ever.
Rap legend Nas also won for the first time after 14 nominations, with his King’s Disease winning Best Rap Album. Nigerian superstar Burna Boy also scored his first trophy for Best Global Music Album, ecstatically accepting the prize which he said: “is a big win for my generation of Africans all over the world.”
But it wouldn’t be the Grammys without controversy.
The Weeknd has pledged to stop submitting music for awards consideration after he surprisingly received no nominations, despite a big year commercially, while Zayn Malik has openly criticised and lashed out at the Grammy jury for excluding him.
“Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination considerations. Next year I’ll send you a basket of confectionery,” wrote the livid musician in a tweet.
According to details, Malik’s latest album wasn’t eligible for this year’s Grammys because it was released after the cut-off date in August 2020. The lead single for his third album Nobody Is Listening ‘Better‘ was released on September 25, 2020, while the album itself came out in January 2021.
Later, the British-Pakistani singer clarified that his comments were “not personal or about eligibility”.
Instead, he was concerned “about the need for inclusion and the lack of transparency of the nomination process”, saying the current system and “allows favouritism, racism, and networking politics to influence the voting”.
Malik has never been nominated, either as a solo act or with One Direction.
Zayn’s comments a few months after The Weeknd, who was snubbed in this year’s nominations, accused Grammys organisers of being “corrupt”.
Audiences and fans had expected the Canadian singer’s hit single Blinding Lights, which has now spent a record-breaking 52 weeks in the US top 10, to be among the main contenders. Instead, he was overlooked in all 84 categories.
Terming the exclusion “an attack”, The Weeknd had said: “I’m not a cocky person. I’m not arrogant. People told me I was going to get nominated. The world told me. We were all very confused.”
The Weeknd
He added that the three Grammys he has “mean nothing” now and called for change within the industry.
“In the last 61 years of the Grammys, only 10 Black artists have won Album of the Year. I don’t want to make this about me,” he added. “That’s just a fact.”
Meanwhile, the 63rd Grammys Ceremony will take place in Los Angeles on March 14, with special staging to adapt to the pandemic era.
The show will feature four stages, each with a small group of performers, nominees and guests, plus a fifth stage for presenters. The stages have been arranged in a circle, while a reduced crew will stand in the centre to film the proceedings.
Beyoncé leads the nominations with nine in total, including four for Black Parade, a protest anthem released at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests last summer.
Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift both have six nominations – with Swift hopeful of winning album of the year for a record-breaking third time for her first lockdown album Folklore.
Performers on the night will include Cardi B, BTS, Doja Cat, Billie Eilish, Haim, Megan Thee Stallion and Malik’s former bandmate Harry Styles, who is nominated for three awards.
