Ali Sethi

Ali Sethi (Opens in a new window)creates music that is a rich fusion of traditional qawwali, ghazals, and modern influences. The New York City-based Pakistani artist blends traditional South Asian melodies with global beats, drawing on folk and woke iconographies to tell powerful tales of identity. Sethi is best known for his single “Pasoori,” which topped Spotify's Viral 50 - Global chart and was declared Google's most hummed-to-search song of 2022. He was named to Time magazine’s TIME100 Next list in 2022. The New Yorker called Sethi's work “stealthily subversive." His music is praised for showing that "differences of culture, language, religion, and gender do not need to be antagonistic; they can, and always have, enriched us and given us some of our greatest works of art."—Time

Sethi rose to prominence with the publishing of his debut novel in 2009, The Wishmaker, and since then he has been involved in numerous musical, film, and literary projects all inspired by his unique identity—a diasporic voice fusing ancient artistic inspiration with a thoroughly modern and urgent outlook. In 2023, Sethi released Intiha(Opens in a new window), an album-length collaboration with Nicolás Jaar, which garnered worldwide attention and a world-tour that included a performance at Coachella, combining camp comedy with breathtaking balladeering.