Artist description SOLO

Music Style TRADITIONAL

Musical Influences SUB-CONTINENTAL CLASSICAL MUSIC

Similar Artists MEHDI HASAN, GHULAM ALI & NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN

Artist History SINGER & COMPOSER, 13 YEARS. STUDENT OF NISAR BAZMI.

Albums 'Beqarari' - released 1999, 'Chupkay Chupkay' - released 2002

Press Reviews "POP GOES THE GHAZAL" - feature published in daily "DAWN", March 21st 1999, by SHEHLA K. FATAH. - How many of our singers actually have the courage to risk changing their style and still be good at it? Not many! Being able to self-criticize his performance and accordingly diversify his style is what Faisal Latif has accomplished through the years. Eight years back hearing Faisal Latif singing geets and ghazals, I instinctively knew that he would eventually make an impact in the music circle. He was young, ambitious and above all not influenced by the 'pop-top' culture. Faisal had a considerable command over the ragas and alaps, beats, tones, etc. At the time the music scene in our country was influenced by pop video productions, and ghazal performers such as Salman and Sarim Alvi, Sheeloo and Masood and Faisal Latif only performed at private functions. It appeared as if traditional music and the classics would literally fade into oblivion. "It is a tragedy that the new generation has not been trained to hear traditional music by their parents, who for their part, had not only listened to it but enjoyed it immensely. Our media has not done justice to it, either. Good vocalists have not been given adequate projection, and that is why they do not attract youngsters. It used to be the artiste and his art that were important, not his marketing abilities. Now it is the other way round," Faisal said. Faisal Latif, since the past few months, has created a niche for himself on television. He developed the music format for the Combine production serial Aik Mohabbat Sau Afsanay. The first episode of Ashfaque Ahmed's original plays, Quratul Ain, featured Faisal's light melody Bekarari kyon ho rahi hai a complete break from his original style of ghazal performance. "After singing ghazals for almost ten years, I did not get the popularity which I got from singing Bekarari. Developing rhythms in accordance with the dramatic situation is not easy, but it is a challenge for me." For Faisal music was a childhood passion. "As a five-year-old, a time when most children like talking to themselves, I used to sing the songs and jingles I heard on television. While other parents asked their children to recite nursery rhymes, mine would ask me to sing songs. In Matric, I enjoyed listening to Ghulam Ali and would sing his compositions all the time. I had no clue of what a harmonium was, nor did I understand the technicalities of music. I had not developed a sense of music till then, but I wanted to learn how music was arranged."He became a shagird of Nisar Bazmi and religiously trained under him for seven years. "Abbu was totally against these activities, though my mother was very supportive, but only if I performed on a limited scale. Now that I am running my own business and my performances have decreased considerably, all is well at home." Faisal would go with Nisar sahib and learn the mutations, the ragas and ragnis. He bought a computer and keyboard and whatever he learnt he would record with the right sequencing. "I also realized that in any composition the singer contributes only five percent though he is the one who comes in the limelight, while the composer and music director who form the backbone of the song, never make it to the front." In 1989, Faisal made his debut television appearance in Dhanak, rendering Iftikhar Arif's ghazal Khwab ki tarah bikhar janay ko jee chahta hai, which ran a couple of times on air. Two years later, his album of ghazals was released through EMI. "It did not do very well in the market. There were two reasons for this, first EMI was going through a major crisis, and secondly ghazal listeners could not accept a young boy of 20 as a ghazal singer. For them ghazals were meant to be sung by a mature person who had an understanding of lyrics, someone like Iqbal Bano or Farida Khanum or Ghulam Ali." Faisal's first composition, Jaan-e-mehfil teri har baat, har andaaz naiya, was a jingle for a biscuit commercial, and although he got other offers from advertising agencies, he turned them down. "I did not approve that clients who did not have a sense for appreciating good music, should reject or criticize my compositions just for the sake of criticism." Due to the lack of promotion of geets and ghazals, Faisal has not appeared very frequently on television. However, satellite viewers saw him recently on Zee TV's production Sa Re Ga Ma which was produced in England. Of the more than 150 singers auditioned from Pakistan, Faisal and Khalil Haider were the only two who came up to the standard of the international selectors to represent Pakistan in the five nation contest. Faisal reached the semifinals. "Our performances were okay, not extraordinary. It was, however, an excellent experience because we came to know our strengths and our weaknesses. The Indian female performers were out of the ordinary, and it was obvious they had been learning music from childhood." This was not Faisal Latif's first appearance before the British audiences. In 1995, he toured England and performed at several occasions. "What I noticed was that people who had settled there from Pakistan almost 20-30 years back still appreciate the music of those times. The melodies of the '70s still exist in their minds and they are indifferent to the pop music of today. Music groups who go from here are popular only with the youngsters. "Faisal Latif's second album is being released soon not only in Pakistan but also internationally. The album features 12 light numbers, including four Punjabi folk songs. "I hope that I will soon be able to record an album of geets and ghazals. After all, it is our traditional music and needs to be promoted in a better way."

Location KARACHI, SINDH - Pakistan

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).