Known For: Songwriter and Singer
Country: Malaysia

About

Zuriani “Ani” Zonneveld is a songwriter, producer, singer, speaker and an educator. She is the Executive Director for the Progressive Muslim Union and an Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace sponsor. Born in Malaysia, Ani spent a good portion of her formative years being raised in Germany, Egypt and India. This had an obvious influence on her outlook of life, politics, religion and culture. As a songwriter and producer she has worked with many different artists with releases in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Germany, the UK, Japan, and the US.

Her work in Malaysia resulted in an Album of the Year award at the AIMM, which is the Malaysian equivalent of the Grammy. She also contributed a song to Keb’ Mo’s album Keep It Simple which helped him win a Grammy (2005) in the Contemporary Blues category, a song for the Grammy-nominated album Big Wide Grin (2003) performed by Grammy winners Keb’Mo’ and Brenda Russell, and to Melissa Manchester’s latest release called “Thank You For Your Faith In Me”. Recently Zuriani contributed three songs for Japanese artist Yuki. Her album Joy remained numer one for several weeks.

Ani has uniquely blended her two worlds of music and social activism into one. She speaks and sings her message of social justice, her angst against violations of human rights, and peace, from a Muslim’s perspective. Ummah Wake Up is an Islamic pop album focusing on the need for Muslims to seek out the real Qur’anic teachings, the Middle Path. The path against discrimination, against violence and against war. One is an interfaith album, born as a result of her love for the many faiths and the realization that we are truly one humanity. Through her activism, Ani hopes these projects will show the world that there is an alternative face to Islam other than the stereotyped cast it currently has.