Nabeel Shoukat’s latest Punjabi song goes viral

His latest single ‘Ruseya Rawe’ is a Punjabi track with flavours of the local culture

KARACHI: One may remember Nabeel Shaukat Ali as the winner of Indian musical reality television show Sur Kshetra in 2012. The Lahore-based singer has since been quietly making his mark in the local music industry since then. His recent offerings have included him lending his voice to songs in Jawani Phir Nahi Ani, Wrong No. and this year’s Raasta.



Written by Khadim Hussain and composed by Saji Ali and Nabeel himself, his latest single is titled Ruseya Rawe and is a Punjabi track with flavours of the local culture. The track garnered more than 2.5 million views on Facebook within three days. Speaking with The Express Tribune, Nabeel shared that the song is all about love in the country side. “With Ruseya Rawe, I wanted to show the local culture. That’s why you will find the depiction of the Basant festival, bangles and the local flavour in the video.”

He said the song has received an unexpectedly positive response. “It has been tremendous. We didn’t expect such great response but I’m thankful that it has. It has the same melodic style with a cool video, like my previous singles Kooch and Bulleya,” he said, adding that there hadn’t been a single negative remark so far. “The audience has appreciated it all over, and not only from Punjab but across the country, and even from India."

The music video has been directed by Adnan Kandhar, a local filmmaker, who also directed Nabeel’s two previous music videos. Nabeel continued to work with him as he said, “Adnan understands and executes my ideas well.”

Kandhar said that they had released a Punjabi track after a long time and they succeeded in making the video despite the local music video industry not growing so much. “A lot of singers are turning to acting to thrive and for fame. No one even invests in local music videos anymore. And that has totally killed it. It’s hard to make music videos in Lahore specifically now.”

Nabeel shared his next single will be in Urdu and he plans to release two to three more singles within 2017. “I’ve done a lot of sad and romantic songs. This is my genre and I want to keep doing it while bringing fresh ideas.”



Nabeel’s creative process includes fascination with words and building upon them. He said, “My songs are quite personal to me. I look for the right words to express an emotion. It was the same with Kooch, and my Coke Studio (season eight) performance, Bewajah. For this track, I found the phrase ‘Ruseya Rawe’ quite unique and just built upon it.”

As far as his foray into film music is concerned, Nabeel believes an artist’s path is not affected by the film’s failure on the box office, as was the case with Raasta. “A film’s music boosts the film. I had one song (in Raasta) and got a great response on it. The film and artist’s success are related but not exactly interdependent.”

Talking about whether reality shows further careers or not, he confessed, “I believe they actually do help in giving you exposure because the audience watches you perform on TV constantly. But at the end of the day, you have to give them original content and not solely rely on covers. You don’t want them remembering you ‘ke is ne Muhammad Rafi ke gaane gaye’, you have to give them something of your own.”

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