Poetic Licence

After two decades of composing and performing her specific brand of multiversal music, Lahoreorigin, Brooklyn-based, Grammy-nominated artist Arooj Aftab is at last in heavy rotation.

- NIDHI GUPTA

AROOJ AFTAB IS not a fashion person, but she definitely has a stage look: dark colours, sherwani jacket, statement shoes. “It’s been working well for me so far, but I guess it’s in need of an upgrade,” she says. “It can be difficult, you know. When you ask designers to make something androgynous for you to wear on stage, they run away screaming. Like, what did I say?

“I can’t go on stage in a lehnga or a sari,” she continues, one eye on her cat, which I can’t see because Aftab’s Zoom window has a virtual filter blacking out her background. This December evening, she sits in a dimly lit room in Brooklyn, wearing a black sweatshirt, accessorized minimally with thick black-frame glasses and a silver link chain necklace. This combination of aesthetic choices has the unintended effect of making it seem like her face is floating in a void, her voice emanating from some other dimension. “Roopa Mahadevan can wear a sari because she’s a badass Carnatic vocalist. I’m not a desi artist. I’m a New York diaspora artist.

“But then, working with designers and stylists is the inevitable path for someone who’s blowing up, right?” Aftab says wryly. It’s been a few weeks since the 36-year-old artist learned that she’d scored two Grammy nominations, in the best global performance (for the utterly visceral, evocative track “Mohabbat” from her third album Vulture Prince) and best new artist categories.