Rahat Fateh Ali Khan talks Sufi music heritage in a livestream with Google

Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan went live but it was way more than what you think.

The singer took part in Talks at Google to speak on Sufi Music Heritage. The discussion was followed by a performance by the maestro.

The Talks at google invites influential thinkers, creators, doers, and makers to share their thoughts.

The event was moderated by VP Anwar Akram, who introduced the Sufi legend as an inspiration.

The artist spoke about his tour that he is currently on which is a tribute to his mentor and legend Ustad Nusrat Ali Khan.

"This is a tribute to the twentieth anniversary of Ustad Nusrat Ali Khan. We had started from this April. It is based on 48 concerts as to pay tribute to the 48 years he spent in this world. This tour goes on till August and we want to take it all over the world."

The talk also included 'googlers' (As termed by Akram), sending in their questions for the singer to answer. One fan also requested that the maestro croon a tune for them, which he did! After shying away from it for a while.

About the message of Sufi music, the singer said, "Music is a universal language. Like we don't understand Latin, or their language, or rap music - I definitely don't understand that - but whatever we can hear in terms of beat or rhythm, we go along with it. That way, every genre has a certain specialty in it's music that's unique to itself. Anyone can understand music as a language. And then we present Sufi music in the modern day in the popular forms that exist now, but keep the overall form true to the specialty that have been present for over 600 years, and that specialty is Qawwali. Use Qawwali to spread the Sufi message and it'll go very far."

Speaking of Qawwali, the singer revealed he has an album in the works, titled Just Qawwali which aims to stay true to it;s name!

Despite being a famous singer in South Asia, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan acknowledges the impact a social media platform like YouTube (Which is a part of Google) has made for him and made it easier for him to spread his music. His song 'Zaroori Tha' has gotten over 195 million views.

The talk was followed by a live performance by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and his musicians, which include his brother Wajahat Ali and cousin Farhat Ali.

The 50 minute session was live streamed has been watched by over 2,000 people.