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Arooj Aftab Tickets, Tour Dates and %{concertOrShowText}
Arooj Aftab Tickets, Tour Dates and %{concertOrShowText}

Arooj AftabVerified

15,952 Followers
• 30 Upcoming Shows
30 Upcoming Shows
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concerts and tour dates

Upcoming
Past

Arooj Aftab merch
amazonview store

Love In Exile[2 LP]
$28.14
View All
Arooj Aftab's tour

Live Photos of Arooj Aftab

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Fan Reviews

Indy
October 4th 2024
Aftab’s choices for musical collaboration brought the perfect flair to the Nashville showcase of her sonically stunning writing and arrangement. Her guitarist ripped throughout the entirely acoustic set, while the rhythm section held up a weighty foundation for Aftab’s deep moody-blue jazz. Her voice simultaneously soared and drew us in. It was somehow both majestic and personal—lush and well defined. And, her sound crew support provided an ideal mix for the space. Great show.
Nashville, TN@
Ascend Amphitheater
Andrea
August 22nd 2024
It was so packed we just sat on the grass in the park. They did pump the music thru speakers throughout the park tho.
New York City, NY@
The Glade
Vince
October 15th 2023
Executive Summary: Superb show! Full Review: As I proudly arrived at the Harris Theater in the bowels of downtown Chicago an hour early for the 7:30 PM concert, it quickly became clear that karma had other plans. I was greeted by an announcement that the performance was delayed due to technical difficulties and the show started promptly about 8ish. It would prove to be worth the wait. Arooj Aftab issued a heartfelt apology to the crowd for the delay and for arriving on stage sans shower or eye make-up, as she hid behind a pair of dark sunglasses and under her "bat cape," garb befitting a proper Vulture Princess. As Aftab (vocals), Vijay Iyer (keys) and Shahzad Ismail (bass) began to play it was clear that this would be less a performance than a calling, a labor of love between artists and audience. Each player a tidal pool uniquely formed from a vast ocean of musical styles. Between songs Aftab directed a sound crew cloaked in darkness to make adjustments to various monitors to get the balance right, perhaps a nod to her background in sound engineering, perhaps just a demonstration of her expert command of the canvas. The back-lit stage consisted of a singular color that changed with the temperature of each song. Warm ambers and reds to cool blues and aquas shone on the sparsely populated stage which worked to enhance the minimalist soundscapes. At times a muted free-form fusion trio; others whisper quiet, loosely structured journeys through merging cultural influences. The Urdu lyrics emphasized Aftab's voice as instrument approach to vocals. Notes adrift, meandering aimlessly through the expanse until colliding with the next sound with spontaneous precision and purpose. Rolling waves and ebbing tides of sound move us to reunite with the souls of our own loves in exile. As the performers slowly left the darkened stage they themselves became our newest love in exile. This exquisite, bittersweet love letter will have to hold their fans until their return. VP
Chicago, IL@
Harris Theater
View More Fan Reviews

About Arooj Aftab

Transformative may not be an urgent enough word to describe the multi-hyphenate creative Arooj Aftab. Rooted to a constellation of unmappable margins and elegant refusals, she lithely moves against the weight of time and convention, honoring multiple traditions while being owned by none. She eludes categorical capture through an expansive repertoire of study, including the techniques of music production and engineering as well a sprawling vocal practice that moves with cunning intention through and alongside jazz, South Asian classical music, pop, and blues. With and from these living, mercurial forms Aftab labors in design of something that she adoringly refers to as “global soul.” She is its erudite scribe and dark chanteuse, successfully convincing audiences all over the world that genres are a lie but she should be believed.

The scale of Aftab’s musical inheritances are on brilliant display in her two most recent albums: the Grammy-nominated “masterclass in space” Love in Exile (Verve, 2023), co-created with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily, and her fourth solo project, the incandescent Night Reign (Verve, 2024). Both are spectacles in skill and Aftab tenderly, expertly holds all of their supple elements like priceless heirlooms. Her seeking, from Sufi poets to iconic jazz vocalists, proved to her that “there was no blueprint for this thing I wanted to do,” and it’s for her embrace of risk and nonconformity that Aftab earned her position at the vanguard of creative music. Since 2021, she has delivered “rapturous performances” at major venues and international festivals such as the Newport Jazz Festival, Coachella, Roskilde Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, Glastonbury, and twice on NPR’s Tiny Desk series; received critical praise from The New York Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Time Magazine; and been awarded a Grammy for “Mohabbat” in the Best Global Music Performance category and a Best New Artist nomination for her standout third album, Vulture Prince (Verve/New Amsterdam, 2021), two nominations for Love in Exile, as well as her selection as a 2023 United States Artists Fellow and recipient of the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Music.

Before and beyond Aftab’s many accolades is the instrument itself, her craveable voice, which she describes as an alchemy of “displacement, reinvention, exile, chaos, feminism and the maddening fabric of love and loss and tragedy in the world.” The calm in her vocal delivery is not comfort or consent but a persistent and expectant intensity that sears the text to countless lifetimes in as many lands. Herself the subject of various migrations, Aftab spent her adolescent years in Lahore, Pakistan, a garden-dense city and the birthplace of her music-loving parents. Her viral cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” at age eighteen aided in her passage to study jazz at Berklee College of Music in Boston, while Brooklyn, New York would be her next and most fertile workshop for creation of her “world-building” music. Night Reign is both a vivid reflection of and future for that music held by the trace figurations of the city. There Aftab works with some of the most stunning musicians of our time, raising diverse concentric circles of collaboration that reflect back to her a cosmic level of musical craft and invention.

Aftab enchants with her passionate attention to the everyday and ability to indelibly shape its stratospheric poesis. She dares to express affection from the stage, a profoundly musical achievement that models not only how to do so but why. Emboldened by her fearlessness and exquisite imagination, others gather and play, proving that she’s exactly who and where she is meant to be. “For once, I’m not fighting,” she says with signature candor. “I’ve already won.”
Show More
Genres:
Alternative, Alternative Jazz, Ambient Jazz, Contemporary Jazz
Hometown:
New York, New York

No upcoming shows in your city
Send a request to Arooj Aftab to play in your city
Request a Show

concerts and tour dates

Upcoming
Past

Live Photos of Arooj Aftab

View All Photos

Arooj Aftab merch
amazonview store

Love In Exile[2 LP]
$28.14
View All
Arooj Aftab's tour

Fan Reviews

Indy
October 4th 2024
Aftab’s choices for musical collaboration brought the perfect flair to the Nashville showcase of her sonically stunning writing and arrangement. Her guitarist ripped throughout the entirely acoustic set, while the rhythm section held up a weighty foundation for Aftab’s deep moody-blue jazz. Her voice simultaneously soared and drew us in. It was somehow both majestic and personal—lush and well defined. And, her sound crew support provided an ideal mix for the space. Great show.
Nashville, TN@
Ascend Amphitheater
Andrea
August 22nd 2024
It was so packed we just sat on the grass in the park. They did pump the music thru speakers throughout the park tho.
New York City, NY@
The Glade
Vince
October 15th 2023
Executive Summary: Superb show! Full Review: As I proudly arrived at the Harris Theater in the bowels of downtown Chicago an hour early for the 7:30 PM concert, it quickly became clear that karma had other plans. I was greeted by an announcement that the performance was delayed due to technical difficulties and the show started promptly about 8ish. It would prove to be worth the wait. Arooj Aftab issued a heartfelt apology to the crowd for the delay and for arriving on stage sans shower or eye make-up, as she hid behind a pair of dark sunglasses and under her "bat cape," garb befitting a proper Vulture Princess. As Aftab (vocals), Vijay Iyer (keys) and Shahzad Ismail (bass) began to play it was clear that this would be less a performance than a calling, a labor of love between artists and audience. Each player a tidal pool uniquely formed from a vast ocean of musical styles. Between songs Aftab directed a sound crew cloaked in darkness to make adjustments to various monitors to get the balance right, perhaps a nod to her background in sound engineering, perhaps just a demonstration of her expert command of the canvas. The back-lit stage consisted of a singular color that changed with the temperature of each song. Warm ambers and reds to cool blues and aquas shone on the sparsely populated stage which worked to enhance the minimalist soundscapes. At times a muted free-form fusion trio; others whisper quiet, loosely structured journeys through merging cultural influences. The Urdu lyrics emphasized Aftab's voice as instrument approach to vocals. Notes adrift, meandering aimlessly through the expanse until colliding with the next sound with spontaneous precision and purpose. Rolling waves and ebbing tides of sound move us to reunite with the souls of our own loves in exile. As the performers slowly left the darkened stage they themselves became our newest love in exile. This exquisite, bittersweet love letter will have to hold their fans until their return. VP
Chicago, IL@
Harris Theater
View More Fan Reviews

About Arooj Aftab

Transformative may not be an urgent enough word to describe the multi-hyphenate creative Arooj Aftab. Rooted to a constellation of unmappable margins and elegant refusals, she lithely moves against the weight of time and convention, honoring multiple traditions while being owned by none. She eludes categorical capture through an expansive repertoire of study, including the techniques of music production and engineering as well a sprawling vocal practice that moves with cunning intention through and alongside jazz, South Asian classical music, pop, and blues. With and from these living, mercurial forms Aftab labors in design of something that she adoringly refers to as “global soul.” She is its erudite scribe and dark chanteuse, successfully convincing audiences all over the world that genres are a lie but she should be believed.

The scale of Aftab’s musical inheritances are on brilliant display in her two most recent albums: the Grammy-nominated “masterclass in space” Love in Exile (Verve, 2023), co-created with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily, and her fourth solo project, the incandescent Night Reign (Verve, 2024). Both are spectacles in skill and Aftab tenderly, expertly holds all of their supple elements like priceless heirlooms. Her seeking, from Sufi poets to iconic jazz vocalists, proved to her that “there was no blueprint for this thing I wanted to do,” and it’s for her embrace of risk and nonconformity that Aftab earned her position at the vanguard of creative music. Since 2021, she has delivered “rapturous performances” at major venues and international festivals such as the Newport Jazz Festival, Coachella, Roskilde Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, Glastonbury, and twice on NPR’s Tiny Desk series; received critical praise from The New York Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Time Magazine; and been awarded a Grammy for “Mohabbat” in the Best Global Music Performance category and a Best New Artist nomination for her standout third album, Vulture Prince (Verve/New Amsterdam, 2021), two nominations for Love in Exile, as well as her selection as a 2023 United States Artists Fellow and recipient of the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Music.

Before and beyond Aftab’s many accolades is the instrument itself, her craveable voice, which she describes as an alchemy of “displacement, reinvention, exile, chaos, feminism and the maddening fabric of love and loss and tragedy in the world.” The calm in her vocal delivery is not comfort or consent but a persistent and expectant intensity that sears the text to countless lifetimes in as many lands. Herself the subject of various migrations, Aftab spent her adolescent years in Lahore, Pakistan, a garden-dense city and the birthplace of her music-loving parents. Her viral cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” at age eighteen aided in her passage to study jazz at Berklee College of Music in Boston, while Brooklyn, New York would be her next and most fertile workshop for creation of her “world-building” music. Night Reign is both a vivid reflection of and future for that music held by the trace figurations of the city. There Aftab works with some of the most stunning musicians of our time, raising diverse concentric circles of collaboration that reflect back to her a cosmic level of musical craft and invention.

Aftab enchants with her passionate attention to the everyday and ability to indelibly shape its stratospheric poesis. She dares to express affection from the stage, a profoundly musical achievement that models not only how to do so but why. Emboldened by her fearlessness and exquisite imagination, others gather and play, proving that she’s exactly who and where she is meant to be. “For once, I’m not fighting,” she says with signature candor. “I’ve already won.”
Show More
Genres:
Alternative, Alternative Jazz, Ambient Jazz, Contemporary Jazz
Hometown:
New York, New York

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