Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Biography and Works.

Born on October 13, 1948, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a world-renowned Pakistani musician. He was primarily a singer of Qawwali, the devotional music of the Sufis.

Considered one of the greatest singers ever recorded, he possessed a six-octave vocal range and could perform at a high level of intensity for several hours.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan extended the 600-year old Qawwali tradition of his family and is widely credited with introducing Sufi music to international audiences.

He was popularly known as Shahenshah-e-Qawwali, which means ‘The King of Kings of Qawwali”.

Nusrat had his first public performance at the age of 16 at his father’s chelum.

In subsequent years, Khan released movie scores and albums for various labels in Pakistan, Europe, Japan and the United States. He was engaged in collaborations and experiments with Western artists, becoming a well-known world music artist in the process. He toured extensively, performing in over 40 countries.

Khan was taken to London on August 11, 1997 for a kidney transplant due to illness with kidney and liver failure. He died of a sudden cardiac arrest at the age of 48. His body was returned to Faisalabad, Pakistan and his funeral was attended by the public and his fans.

Trivia

He officially became the head of the family qawwali party in 1971. He was signed by the Oriental Star Agencies (OSA), Birmingham, United Kingdom in the early 1980s.