Pak singers & Indian composers find new ways to work together

With relations between India and Pakistan still at a stalemate, the musical exchange between the two countries has found new meeting points: Dubai and the Internet. And Indian news websites report that Pakistani musicians are not allowed to do public performances and are not getting visas to travel to India for recordings. Last month, music director Pritam e-mailed three compositions to singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan who then recorded them in Pakistan and e-mailed it back to the music director. "It's tough working out a long distance recording. Rahat would be on conference call sometimes at 4 AM in the morning. He shares such a great relationship with Indian music directors like Pritam that he gives preference to these recordings. There's lots of love and respect," says Raja Umair Hussain, Khan's business manager from Pakistan.

Pritam, who has also been working with Atif Aslam (Atif has a contract with Tips), says that they have no choice but to work their way around the problems. "I am flying to Dubai next week to record two songs with Atif for a forthcoming film. Since he won't get a visa to India and I won't get a visa to Pakistan, we will fly to down to Dubai and record there," said Pritam, while speaking to DNA India. Shafqat Amanat Ali, who is also a hit favourite on the Bollywood soundtrack scene, is doing some Bollywood projects including Mukesh Bhatt's next film. While Music Today released his last album, Tabeer, Shafqat can't do live shows any more. "We have been asked to stay away from public performances in India," said Shafqat. "The ban on artistes will not do any good. Most of our work is on hold. The artist community has been the first and the worst to be hit," he said.

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