The new voices reshaping Pakistan’s drama soundtracks

For more than a decade, the same handful of names dominated Pakistani drama original soundtracks (OSTs). But somewhere between 2019 and now, a quieter shift has been taking place.

Every few years, Pakistani television hands the aux cord to a new set of voices. New singers are landing breakout tracks that have managed something OSTs rarely attempt, while familiar formulas are being pulled apart and reassembled.

Here’s a look at some of the newer voices currently reshaping our playlists.

AUR

Most OSTs are built to sound timeless: soft strings, a swelling chorus, something your parents could hum along to. But the title track of Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum, Chal Diye Tum Kahan, did the opposite — and it worked.

Written and performed by Ahad Khan and Usama Ali, the duo behind AUR, alongside producer Raffey Anwar, the track leaned into a distinctly modern, almost lo-fi sound that OSTs rarely touch. It became an anthem for a much younger, deeply online audience in the process.

It remains their only drama OST credit so far, but AUR is hardly a one-song act. Their catalogue includes the viral Tu Hai Kahan, featuring ZAYN, the moody Shikayat and their 2025 EP Par Ab Jo Aayegi Tu, all rooted in the same slow-burning, emotionally unguarded sound.

If Chal Diye Tum Kahan felt like a departure from OST convention, it’s because AUR was never really working within that convention to begin with.

Yashal Shahid’s path into OSTs started almost by accident. A singing video she recorded during her university days caught Ali Zafar’s attention, leading to a studio session and eventually to her first drama credit, Bharaas.

Years later, she has become one of the format’s most recognisable emotional voices. Her vocals carried Iqtidar throughout its 2025 run, becoming a near-permanent fixture on reels and playlists for the duration of the show.

Around the same time, she lent her melancholic, slightly haunting tone to Akhiyan for Main Manto Nahi Hoon, a drama that divided critics but not listeners.

Go back further and you’ll find her on Tere Bin, the OST for Hum Kahan Kay Sachay Thay, which first properly put her name on the map.

Across all of it, the throughline remains the same: a voice that sounds as though it is holding something back, which is precisely what makes it work for heartbreak.

Samar Jafri is a rare case of an actor, singer and composer working across all three disciplines, and it shows in how closely his music sits alongside his on-screen presence.

His solo track for Parwarish, Main Rahun, and its companion piece Guzaarishein, a duet with Alistair Alvin, both rely on the same warm, slightly rough-edged vocal style that made his performance on the show resonate with audiences.

That instinct isn’t new for him.

His 2023 solo OST for Mayi Ri became one of that year’s most-streamed drama tracks, well before Parwarish made him a household name as a performer.

Jafri writes, composes and sings his own material — a relatively rare combination in an industry that typically keeps those roles separate. The result is an unmistakable sense of authorship in his OSTs.

Saad Sultan isn’t a new name in the industry. He has been composing OSTs since Dhaani and Mera Naam Yousuf Hai, but 2025 was the year he stepped further into the spotlight as a performer rather than remaining behind the boards.

Main Woh Toh Nahin, his OST for Main Manto Nahi Hoon, paired his vocals with Aima Baig’s, with its stripped-back, confessional tone becoming one of the year’s more talked-about tracks.

He didn’t stop there.

Sultan also co-composed Khaada Aye for Sher, sung by Shahid Amin, showing that his ear extends beyond his own material. It’s a reminder that some of the “new voices” reshaping OSTs aren’t necessarily new at all; they’ve simply been waiting for the right moment to step in front of the microphone.

Natasha Baig has spent more than a decade moving between Sufi rock, folk and playback singing. So by the time she arrived at Banjarapun, the OST for the horror-comedy Jinn Ki Shadi Unki Shadi, she brought a texture that few other singers could.

The track needed to sound eerie without tipping into parody, and Baig, who grew up listening to Abida Parveen and has built a career around crossing genres, found precisely that balance.

It’s a rare example of an OST doing something formally different within the genre. But Baig had already demonstrated her range.

Her 2019 OST for Khaas, Woh Jo Tha Bahut Hi Khaas, was a straightforwardly tender, romantic piece, while her work on Adawat, alongside Adnan Dhool, sat somewhere in between. Baig doesn’t really have a signature OST sound — and increasingly, that seems to be the point.

What ties these artists together isn’t a shared sound; it’s the opposite.

Each has pushed the Pakistani OST somewhere it hadn’t quite been before, whether through AUR’s lo-fi departure from convention, Baig’s genre-blurring approach to horror, Jafri’s singer-actor-composer model or Sultan’s move from behind the boards to the microphone.

If the last decade of OSTs was defined by a handful of consistent, familiar names, the current one looks far more unpredictable. And judging by how quickly these tracks are making their way onto playlists, audiences don’t seem to mind.