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Abida Parveen
Category: Performing
Music
Country: Pakistan
About
Abida Parveen is a well-known Pakistani singer in the traditions of qawwali, ghazal and kafi, and known to many as the Sufi Queen of music. Abida composes her own music adding to it lyrics from Sufi poetry, and she sings in Urdu, Sindhi, Hindi, Punjabi and Seraiki. Although she is often compared to Pakistan’s Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Parveen says “We are all the same species — all humans have a representative of godliness, so there is really no male/female division. I have been given this gift by the Divine, who does not recognize differences between male and female singing. I am simply a medium, and if you listen to me sing, even over the period of a few days, it will be entirely different because the transmission is from the Divine.”
Abida received her musical training at an early age from her father Ustad Ghulam Haider and later from Ustad Salamat Ali Khan. She began her career in the early 1970’s with her first hit, singing the popular Sindhi song, “Tuhinje zulfan jay band kamand widha”. Some of her albums include Ruh-e Ali, Baba Bulleh Shah and she was awarded the President of Pakistan’s Award for Pride of Performance in 1982 and the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, or star of excellence, in 2005.
