After making a cut in Barack Obama's summer playlist favourites for 2021, Pakistani Singer Arooj Aftab has now bagged two nods at the star-studded nominations list for the 64th Grammy Award.?
The nominations were announced at a live-streamed online event on Tuesday morning (US Pacific Time).?
Arooj finds herself in a rather crowded field with nine other breakthrough artists, including The Kid LAROI, Arlo Parks and Olivia Rodrigo. Her 'Mohabbat' has been nominated for the Best Global Music Performance category.?
?Obama, who is mainly responsible for Aftab's global visibility, is among the nominees for the 80-some categories (his third shot at a Grammy after 2006 and 2008).?
The former U.S. President's 'A Promised Land' audiobook has made it to the Best Spoken Word Album shortlist, up against some serious competition from the now-controversial comedian (and three-time Grammy winner) Dave Chappelle, LeVar Burton, Don Cheadle and J. Ivy.?
Aftab belongs to Lahore, Pakistan. According to sources, Arooj Aftab taught herself to play the guitar and started developing her voice through deep listening to various musicians such as Begum Akhtar, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Billie Holiday, and Mariah Carey.?
After drawing inspiration from her favourite musicians, she started using the internet to promote her music in Pakistan in the early 2000s.?
Her renditions of "Hallelujah" and "Mera Pyaar" went viral on the internet and she became one of the first music artists to create space for the Pakistani indie scene.?
According to her initiative 'Rebuild Pakistan': She and her friends started featuring exclusive music, videos and live shows to promote a vision of peace and healing for Pakistan - The description read: "Inspiring a global community to rebuild perspective on Pakistan, and urging the people of Pakistan to actively engage in rebuilding their homeland."??
Aftab moved to the United States in 2005, earned a degree in Music Production and Engineering and Jazz Composition at the Berklee College of Music. She is based out of New York.
The complete list of nominees released by 'Variety' reveals that Jon Batiste, who's best known for his nightly appearances since 2015 on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert', has got the highest number of nominations (11), followed by Justin Bieber, Doja Cat and H.E.R., who have eight each; Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo are tied with seven nominations.?
However, the most notable among the nominees was Rodrigo, an 18-year-old actor who launched her musical career early this year with the viral smash 'Drivers License'.?
Lil Nas X bagged five nods. Grammy favourite Brandi Carlile got five, too, and R&B duo Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak's Silk Sonic got four.
Carlile got her five mentions for three other singles -- she's even competing against herself for song of the year; all of Silk Sonic's nominations were for 'Leave the Door Open'.Taylor Swift got just one nomination as an artist, but it's for arguably the biggest one: album of the year, for her 'Evermore'. (She won it last time for 'Folklore'.)?
Kanye West's 'Donda' is also up for the big prize, along with three hip-hop awards.K-pop supergroup B.T.S.'s showing was a source of considerable speculation among ARMY members.
?In the end, the septet got one nomination, for pop duo/group, for 'Butter'; it was in the same category that they had found themselves last year for 'Dynamite'.
(With IANS inputs)??