Hadiqa Kiani
Hadiqa Kiani is a Pakistani singer, songwriter, guitarist, actress, and social worker. She has won many national and international awards. Hadiqa has also performed at famous places like the Royal Albert Hall in the UK and The Kennedy Center in the USA. Along with Urdu and Punjabi, she has also sung songs in various local and international languages.
Early life and career
Kiani was born in Rawalpindi as the youngest of three siblings. She has an older brother and a sister. Her father died when she was three years old. Her mother, poet Khawar Kiani, was the principal of a government girls' school. Seeing her musical ability, Khawar enlisted Kiani in the Pakistan National Council of the Arts. She received early education in music from her teacher, Nargis Naheed.While studying at Viqar-un-Nisa Noon Girls High School, Kiani represented Pakistan at international children festivals in Turkey, Jordan, Bulgaria, and Greece, winning various medals. Kiani was also a part of Sohail Rana's children's program Rang Barangi Dunya, a weekly musical on PTV.
As an eighth grader, Kiani moved from her birthplace Rawalpindi to Lahore, where she continued her classical training by Ustad Faiz Ahmed Khan and Wajid Ali Nashad. Kiani went on to graduate with a bachelor's degree in psychology from Kinnaird College for Women University and her Masters in Psychology from the Government College University in Lahore.
In the early 1990s, Kiani hosted a children's TV music program called Angan Angan Taray. In the -year-long run, she had sung over one thousand songs for children while hosting the show alongside the music composer Amjad Bobby and then with music composer Khalil Ahmed. Owing to the number of songs Kiani sang during this program, she was presented with the title of "A+ artist" on behalf of PTV joining the likes of Noor Jehan, Naheed Akhtar, and Mehnaz. Kiani also appeared as a VJ for a music charts program called Video Junction on NTM.
Albums
1995: ''Raaz''
The following year, Kiani released her debut album Raaz in 1996. The album spawned a string of radio-friendly hits and received positive reviews. Some argue that the reason the album did well was because it was not common for female singers to release albums in Pakistan. Also, she was the first female singer to release a pop album after the former pop singer, Nazia Hassan, gave up her musical career. Kiani's ability to sing in other dialects was also presented to the country through the hit Kashmiri folk song "Maane Di Mauj."Her increasing popularity was further highlighted in January 1997, when Kiani became the first Asian singer to perform at the British National Lottery Live on BBC One. Afterwards she worked on two more shows with Bally Sagoo for BBC and ITV before going on her first U.S. tour in 1997. Her U.S. tour covered 15 states and a few cities in Canada. The same year Kiani performed many other international events in the United Kingdom, Australia, and China. By the summer of 1997, Kiani was representing Pakistan as the only Pakistani singer to perform at "Celebration Hong Kong 97" at Happy Valley Race Course, alongside other International singers like Lisa Stansfield, Wet Wet Wet, Michael Learns to Rock, All 4 One and The Brand New Heavies, an event to celebrate Hong Kong's freedom from the United Kingdom.
By the end of the year she became the first Asian female singer ever to be signed by Pepsi Cola International.
1998: ''Roshni ''
In 1998, Kiani recorded the official theme song for the 1999 Cricket World Cup. The Pepsi sponsored song was titled Intehai Shauq, written by Kiani's mother, Khawar Kiani, and composed and produced by the famed Nizar Lalani. The song was filmed by Jami and Imran Baber.Amidst the World Cup recording, Kiani released her second album, titled Roshni. The third single from the album was Dupatta. The video was inspired by the sci-fi film The Matrix. The song is listed in the Twenty Best Pop Songs Ever for Pakistan, where it is positioned at number 15. The success of the song was attributed to its quasi-bhangra rhythm with "fat, funky techno beats" and Kiani's "dreamy-meets-husky vocals" which made the results "stunning".
Capitalizing on "Dupatta's" success, Kiani went on to release two other moderate hits, "Roshni", and "Woh Kaun Hai". Her sixth single of the album, "Boohey Barian" went on to become an even bigger hit for her than "Dupatta". To date, "Boohey Barian" is widely accepted as Kiani's best single ever and noted as one of the most prominent Pakistani songs of all time. It was filmed in the Barood Khana Haveli, Lahore Back in 1998. It is one of the most famous nostalgic song of all time. Its melody and lyrics reflect love, patience, and longing, with a hopeful desire to find love in the end—no matter the cost—through prayers to the Almighty.
Roshni sold over a million copies in Pakistan alone, certifying it as "Platinum". The album is listed in "The 20 Best Local Pop Albums Ever" for the country, positioned at No.15. Kiani is just one of two female singers in the entire list.
Kiani's success led to her being signed by Unilever for celebrity endorsement of Lipton in 2001. In 2002, she was signed again by Unilever for Sunsilk Shampoo after the results of Unilever's national survey to find the "Most Popular Woman of Pakistan".
2002: ''Rung''
Kiani released her third album Rung in September 2002. She returned to promote the album in June 2003, almost 10 months after she'd released "Yaad Sajan" with a new single "Ranjhan" and several stage performances and tours around the country. She then released other singles off the album throughout 2003 and 2004. These included "Jogi Bun Kay Aa", "Mahi" and "Dholan". In "Jogi Bun Kay Aa" Kiani plays various women's roles, including a traditional Japanese, an Arab, and a tribal woman. She played a vampire in her video for "Mahi" which was directed by top director Asim Raza. The video showed that it is harmful to judge people of different faiths and castes, and also bad to stereotype. It was the highest budgeted video of the year 2003. During this time, Kiani was in the midst of her first divorce, however Kiani's album sales continued to pick up through 2003 and 2004. In 2004, she received the Best Female Pop Singer Award by Indus Music, the first 24-hour music channel of Pakistan. Asim Raza won an award for best video for directing her critically acclaimed video Mahi.Shortly after the release of Rung, Kiani was mentioned in "Pakistani Pop's 10 most Influential Acts Ever", in which she was ranked ninth. She is also one of just two female singers in the list, the other being Nazia Hassan. A UK-based Magazine declared Kiani the 22nd greatest music maker of South Asia out of a total of fifty artists, also mentioning how she raised the standard of music videos in the country.
Several years after the release of Rung, leading Indian Sufi singer "Harshdeep Kaur" covered Kiani's self composed "Jogi Bun Kay Aa" on a leading Indian television show.
2007: ''Rough Cut''
In 2007, Kiani released her fourth studio album, Rough Cut, a collaboration with Aamir Zaki. With the release of Rough Cut, Kiani became the first mainstream Pakistani artist to release an album completely in English.Prior to the release of the album, Kiani and Zaki teamed up for an Urdu song, written by Zaki, titled "Iss Baar Milo". The video was directed by Jami and starred Humayun Saeed opposite of Kiani. "Iss Baar Milo's" video production and acting performances, notably Kiani's portrayal of a "schizophrenic" patient in a Pakistani mental hospital received a great response.
In April 2007, Kiani released the first official single for the album, titled "Living This Lie". The same week, Kiani was named "Hotstepper of the week" for The News by Jang Group. The article also stated that ultimately, "as long as Hadiqa is around, there is still hope for women in the patriarchal music world of Pakistan."
"Living This Lie" was nominated and won for "Best English Song" at "The Musik Awards" in 2007. Kiani was also nominated for Best Female Singer in the same award show.
2009: ''Aasmaan''
The first single of the album was "Sohnya". The official video of "Sohnya" premiered a day before Kiani released the album. Following the release, the song+video stayed on the "Aag top 10 Charts" for over a month resulting in Kiani receiving a Shield from Aag10 for being the Artist of the Month.The album itself stayed Number One on the Vibes Charts of INSTEP Magazine for the entire year. By the end of 2009, Aasmaan was named the Best Album of 2009 according to sales volume, popularity and internet downloads.
Every single released from Aasmaan reached number one. "Sohnya" was number one AAG10 Charts for over a month and was titled the best Pop Song of 2009 according to The Nation. "Tuk Tuk" was number one on Prime TV Charts. "Az Chashme Saqi" went number one on PlayTv Charts and by the end of 2009, it was declared the third best music video of 2009.
In February 2010, Kiani released "Janan", for which she collaborated with relatively unknown Pashto singer Irfan Khan. The song has become Kiani's biggest hit till date and some say that it has even topped the popularity of "Boohey Barian". The song became the first Pakistani pop song to be mentioned by the Los Angeles Times, where the newspaper said that "Janan" was what the whole country was listening to. Kiani's rendering in the Pashto language was critically acclaimed. Some Pakhtoons even started to call her "Hadiqa Pathani", Kiani is credited with bringing back a trend in Pakistan of embracing Pashto culture, girls started to wear Pashto style dresses imitating Kiani's looks on the red carpet and more mainstream singers began singing in the local language. The song's widespread popularity was credited to the fact that it broke barriers in Pakistani music. Kiani being a Punjabi, singing a Pashto song and appealing to not only Pakistani Pashto audiences, but to audiences worldwide. Kiani's "Janan" has been covered by many international singers, most noticeably by the Chinese singer Hou Wei at the grand South Asia Expo in 2014. The Chinese cover was done as a tribute to Pakistani culture which elevated the Pashto community in Pakistan while, what many say, cementing the song as a national treasure