Ahmed Rushdi - First Regular Pop Singer of South Asia

First Regular Pop Singer of South Asia

Ahmed Rushdi is considered to be the first regular pop singer of south asia as he introduced hip-hop, rock n roll, disco and other modern genres in South Asian music and has since then been adopted in Bangladesh, India and lately Nepal as a pioneering influence in their respective pop cultures. Following Rushdi's success, Christian bands specialising in jazz started performing at various night clubs and hotel lobbies in Karachi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Dhaka and Lahore. They would usually sing either famous American jazz hits or cover Rushdi's songs. Rushdi sang playback hits along with Runa Laila until the Bangladesh Liberation War when East Pakistan was declared an independent state.

Because of Ahmed Rushdi, Pakistani music industry has steadily spread throughout South Asia and today is the most popular genre in Pakistan and the neighbouring South Asian countries. Pop icons like Alamgir and Muhammad Ali Shehki later on followed Rushdi's landmarks in playback singing.

Read more about this topic:  Ahmed Rushdi

Famous quotes containing the words regular, pop, singer, south and/or asia:

    A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides through an interpreter, quite in the described mode,—the Indians, as usual, having the advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were quite dissatisfied with the white man’s treatment of them, and probably have reason to be so.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.
    Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)

    In the race for wealth, a neighbor tries to outdo his neighbor, but this strife is good for men. For the potter envies potter, and the carpenter the carpenter, and the beggar rivals the beggar, and the singer the singer.
    Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)

    The South Wind is a baker.
    Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931)

    [N]o combination of dictator countries of Europe and Asia will halt us in the path we see ahead for ourselves and for democracy.... The people of the United States ... reject the doctrine of appeasement.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)