Fans of Coke Studio Pakistan awaiting the sixteenth season of the music video series have got a new offering from the team behind the most recent iterations of the show. Music composer Xulfi and production company Giraffe’s CEO Muhammad Ibrahim’s recently-launched project Humnava is similar yet different.
Co-curated by guitarist and music producer Sherry Khattak who served as the ‘audio head’ for Coke Studio Pakistan, Humnava comprises nine collaborative songs and accompanying videos, which are being released weekly from mid-April to mid-June. Unlike its predecessor, which brings established stars together, it was recorded over the course of a 40-day “creative residency” in the valley of Hunza, by 20 Pakistani musicians and eight international artists.
While the popular qawwali duo Zain Zohaib appears on one of the tracks, the majority of the compositions feature local talents from Hunza such as singers Faheem Uddin Hunzai, Maheen Sattar, Noman Asmet, Naveed Deevon and Coke Studio Pakistan alumni Noorima Rehan. The international continent, meanwhile, includes guitarist Amine Laroug and vocalist Bakrin Timlfati from Algeria; violinist Blaise Merlin and saxophonist Peter Corser from France; singers Elijah Bwalya and Joshua Bwalya from Zambia; and EDM producer Gray Contrast aka Dorian Goetsh from Germany.
In addition to writing and recording the songs, they participated in daily jam sessions and instrument-making workshops with local craftsmen, and staged three concerts that were open to the general public. Those activities are likely to be part of an upcoming documentary about Humnava, the music videos for which are being supplemented by behind-the-scenes footage, a podcast and recordings of the jam sessions.
Thus far, Humnava’s tracks, which are rooted in traditional sounds, haven’t garnered the stream numbers tallied by Coke Studio Pakistan’s more contemporary, genre-mixing tunes. Given that apart from Xulfi and Zain Zohaib, the performers aren’t household names, they might take time to find an audience.
How they perform over the long run will probably determine how soon Xulfi and Ibrahim execute their plan to make more seasons, each of which will take place in a different region of Pakistan, with the aim of building creative infrastructure and training local talent. In Hunza, for instance, they also worked with students from the Bulbulik Music School’s band. Humnava could potentially boost tourism as well, for the beautifully shot videos double up as great advertisements for the scenic beauty of the area.
