Abdullah Qureshi back with new single ‘Aaja’

Islamabad-based singer-songwriter Abdullah Qureshi recently dropped a new single with a video. Titled ‘Aaja’, the song is a romantic track, the kind Qureshi is best known for.

Qureshi is one of the youngest and most popular artists to have come up through underground performances. He has been invited to perform in Lahore, Karachi, and other metropolitan cities of Pakistan where there is a vibrant music scene. The singer has also had concert tours in the UK, UAE and Thailand.

Qureshi rose to fame with covers of songs that he uploaded on YouTube. Soon he featured on season four of music TV series ‘Nescafe Basement’. He released his first single ‘Tere Liye’ in 2013, and followed it up with ‘Laa Pata,’ ‘Daastan’ and ‘Kali Santro,’ all of which became big hits. He also had the rare chance to perform the national anthem for the Pakistan Super League’s Islamabad United team. More recently, he was the playback singer for his cousin, actress Hareem Farooq’s feature film, ‘Heer Maan Jaa’.

‘Aaja,’ like most of his singles, is written and composed by Qureshi himself. The video is directed by Sa’ad Hashmi, and features Shahmeera Sohail, an up and coming model.

There’s an interesting back story to the song.

“I started writing [it] almost two years ago, and I don’t know why but I couldn’t complete the lyrics back then,” Qureshi said. “So, I put it aside for a while. Although it has very simple lyrics, somehow it was difficult for this specific melody to sound smooth with anything that I wrote.”

That he eventually made it, with the help of his musician friends Taimur Rehman and Ahmad Mehdi, is history now.