Dawn Images

Strings founder Bilal Maqsood is putting his musical talents to other uses — he has written, composed and sung eight nursery rhymes in Urdu, shifting his focus to a much younger, cuter audience. The animated rhymes are in collaboration with Peek Freans Gluco and are available on YouTube. Maqsood said his sole purpose was to provide Pakistani children with quality Urdu content.

"Hi guys! Eight original Urdu nursery rhymes. Written, composed and sung by me in collaboration with Peek Freans Gluco are now on YouTube," the singer captioned an Instagram post. He added that they will be available on all the audio streaming platforms soon.

Maqsood's post featured a video with clips from the animated rhymes and his vocals in the background. His rhymes are sandwiched between snippets of him addressing the audience to introduce his new project.

"I have produced these rhymes in collaboration with Peek Freans Gluco so Pakistani children can have quality content in Urdu," he explained in the video. "These rhymes will be available on YouTube and other streaming platforms," he added, mentioning the link in his bio to his YouTube channel.

This sounds like an adorable project that kids will both enjoy and learn from and even received a lot of praise from parents in the comment section under his Instagram post.

Strings' musical journey came to an end after 33 years on March 25, 2021 and almost a year later Maqsood decided to go solo and forge his own path. The singer told Images in Jan 2022 he'll be launching three solo singles, possibly one after the other.

“I’m in a very happy place right now,” he told ICON. “When Faisal and I decided to end Strings, things felt strange for a while. I kept thinking about what I wanted to do, but then I decided that I would go with the flow and go wherever life takes me.”

And life took Maqsood by the hand and led him to new avenues. He sang covers of songs on his piano at home and floated them out on Instagram. He took on the mantle of music producer and helmed a thumping, groovy Soundstation. He revamped the jingle of a well-known tea advertisement and, most recently, collaborated with SomeWhatSuper for the Pakistan Super League franchise the Quetta Gladiators. Now, he has some new projects in the pipeline and one has already come to fruition with these Urdu rhymes.