Stylistic origins Rock, sufi music, (Hindustani classical music) Typical instruments Electric guitar, bass guitar, drums, vocals, dhol, tabla, sitar, flute, harmonium | ||
Sufi rock is a subgenre of rock music that combines rock with classical sufi music traditions. It emerged in the early 1990s and became widely popular in the late 1990s in Pakistan and India. The term "sufi rock" was coined in 1993 by writer Nadeem F. Paracha to define the Pakistani band Junoon, who pioneered the process of fusing conventional rock music with sufi music and imagery.
It is mostly based on the poetry of famous sufi poets such as Rumi, Hafez, Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, Bulleh Shah, Waris Shah and even Kabir and is mostly sung in languages such as Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Persian and Turkish.
A few artists such as Junoon,*Fuzon and Mekaal Hasan Band have achieved commercial success as well as mainstream critical recognition while some veteran sufi folk singers such as Arif Lohar and Saeen Zahoor have also dabbled in this genre.