Arieb Azhar is a Pakistani musician. He is a singer of Sufi poetry and a folk singer.
Early life
Arieb Azhar was born on 30 June 1972 at Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He is the second son of Aslam Azhar. Aslam Azhar is widely considered to be the "father of Pakistan Television" due to his pioneering work in the early years of television in Pakistan after its introduction in the country in 1964. While Aslam Azhar was busy establishing Pakistani television in its initial stages, his young son Arieb Azhar was exposed to many prominent Pakistani folk singers and classical musicians who used to frequent their home. His parents also used to play a lot of eastern and western classical musicat home. So Arieb Azhar got exposed to all this great music and developed an appreciation for it. He is at ease and fluent in both Urdu and Punjabi languages.
He is best known for his Husn-e-Haqiqi song at Coke Studio. He has spent 13 years of his life in Zagreb, Croatia receiving higher education there and returned to Pakistan in 2004 to reconnect with his Pakistani roots. His first album, Wajj, released in 2006, consisted of eight tracks, in which he vocalized the classical lyrics of Sufi poets like Khawaja Ghulam Farid, Bulleh Shah, Mian Muhammad Bakhsh, and even the contemporary lyrics of Sarmad Sehbai.
Collaboration with other musicians
In 2012, Arieb Azhar was planning a trip to England, sponsored by the British Council, Karachito go and work together with an eminent English folk singer Martin Simpson with the purpose of fusing Celtic and South Asian folk and classical music together to create a fusion on a 'soul' level. Arieb Azhar said in an interview in 2012, "Martin and I are trying to come up with music together in a very natural and organic way where we are playing off each other's music 'feel' ". One of Arieb Azhar's interests is to mix urban and folk-based songs with lyrics from Pakistani Sufi poets while making use of other Eurasian influences he has absorbed along the way. Sometimes Arieb Azhar has been called a melting pot of musical and artistic influences.
