Pakistan's first reality rap show, Rap Icon Pakistan, releases teaser with judges Talha Anjum, Bohemia
The show is set to release on May 24 on YouTube.
In early December, a clip of Fawad Khan went viral on Instagram. This was not the well-mannered and stoic movie star we know today — this short clip from 2003 showed a more aggressive and rebellious Fawad. With anger and passion colouring his voice, he said, “The thing that turns people off about us is that parents complain that the music is too loud and distorted. They’re acting like the Pied Piper, taking children by the hand and leading them to what they think is right. And if you call what we do ‘destroying the generation’, then I’m proud to be responsible for that.”
This was the Fawad Khan of Entity Paradigm (EP), not the Fawad Khan of Neelofar. While Fawad’s may now be a household name in the country, many remain unaware of his rock origins. In the early 2000s, he was the lead vocalist of EP, one of the most prominent rock bands of the era, known for powerful tracks such as ‘Hamesha’ and ‘Waqt’.
What Fawad articulated in the clip is the generally agreed-upon spirit of rock and roll: loud, unapologetic, and non-conforming.
The slow death of rock in Pakistan can largely be traced back to the gradual disappearance of live music in the country. This, in turn, can be safely attributed to the wave of terrorism that rocked the country from 2008 to 2013. For rock bands in particular, live gigs are the main source of income.
But the underground rock scene never truly disappeared. Live music was kept alive through smaller events and festivals, like the Hellfest in the 2010s.
Then came a major generational shift: the rise of hip hop, bedroom pop, and, more recently, TikTok music.
“It was Gully Boy,” claimed Aaiz ‘Rebelvi’ Khan, the lead vocalist of Islamabad-based band Rebel Club. “We underestimate the influence India has on mainstreaming certain things in Pakistan. Young Stunners were an amazing duo long before they blew up the way they did. I think Gully Boy played a huge role in mainstreaming Hindi and Urdu rap.”
He is, of course, referring to the popular 2019 Bollywood film starring Ranveer Singh about an underdog rapper struggling to express himself through song. For Pakistani youth, the outlet for emotional release has now shifted from rock to hip hop. Head bopping has replaced head banging.
“We don’t see hip hop as competitive. We love and respect hip hop,” said Amray, the drummer for Rebel Club. “It’s also interesting that both genres have roots in the Black community’s underground culture. There is more similarity between the two genres than there are differences.”
The economics of music production matter here. Hip hop is far more accessible because it is not reliant on live instruments, making it both cost- and time-efficient. Solo artists can bypass maintaining a live band entirely; a backing track is often enough to carry performances. In contrast, the barriers to entry in rock are far more pronounced.
And yet, against all these odds, rock persisted; not in the mainstream, but in small pockets of passion and obsession.
“All of us knew we wanted to be rockstars. Even when we didn’t know each other, we knew that’s what we wanted,” said Aaiz. “We kept getting pulled back from our dreams to reality. But reality was just a series of tick boxes we had to check so we could go on dreaming and making the music we love.”
Rebel Club is a four-member band made up of a doctor, a finance guy, a techbro and a student. The band came together in 2018, a year they describe as “politically charged but musically dead”.
Goshtkhor, on the other hand, is a two-member rock duo made up of Hasan and Hamza — two punk kids who also run a skating community in Lahore.
In 2018, Spotify wasn’t officially available in Pakistan, but music was changing rapidly. Local streaming platforms like Patari and Taazi were gaining popularity, and Pakistan was on the cusp of hip hop becoming the dominant genre. Rock was, for all practical purposes, dead. Rockstars of yore had either conformed or stopped releasing and performing altogether. Even Coke Studio Pakistan, which began as an exploration of rock fusion, was on the cusp of making a decisive pivot toward pop.
All of this was unfolding within a structureless music industry, where releasing music remained a largely DIY, self-funded effort.
A strong desire for community, combined with the need to create opportunities where none existed, culminated in the “Phirse Waapis Aagaya Hai Rock n’ Roll” tour in December 2025. Led by Rebel Club, the tour brought together 11 underground rock bands across Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi, including Dulhay Mian, Goshtkhor, and Flying Chappal.
“We had to collectivise and pool resources because we were tired of playing for audiences that would rather listen to hip hop, EDM, or qawwali,” Aaiz explained. “We struggled to get sponsors and even venues. We were turned down a lot before Rockstar Jeans agreed to sponsor the tour. But honestly, even if we hadn’t found a sponsor, we would have found a way to do it ourselves.”
The goal, according to the band, was always to build a community of like-minded madmen. Rock musicians, they admit, often foster unhealthy competition around who is the better guitarist, who plays faster, who sounds heavier. There is also a tendency to wait for opportunities instead of claiming agency, slipping into a victim mindset.
Hasan, the bassist and vocalist of Goshtkhor, said they learnt a great lesson from the tour. “We can create our own opportunities as long as there is appetite for the music we are making.”
Goshtkhor is doing exactly that now: selling merch and tickets to fund their next album and building a community of rock enthusiasts in Lahore and Islamabad.
The tour was an attempt at pre-competitive collaboration: putting ego aside to build something larger than individual bands. Mentors and older musicians associated with the Guitar Collective such as Khurram Waqar, Asad Ahmad, and Gumby played quiet but important supportive roles in encouraging this shift.
Conformity is a persistent anxiety lurking in the minds of rock musicians, and Rebel Club is no exception. They are a tight unit, but the fear remains.
When the band’s youngest and newest member, Amray, joined as drummer, he was explicitly told there was no money in this game. “You’ll get paid when we get paid,” they told him. Amray was undeterred. “All I wanted was to play good music. It was simple.”
This fear appears less pronounced for Goshtkhor, perhaps due to their Gen Z angst. The duo seems assured of their staying power and unconcerned with longevity in conventional terms.
Beyond conformity lies another tension: fame. Solo artists are statistically more likely to succeed today, given how listening experiences are shaped. There is more visibility, more money, more individual glory. Why then choose to be part of a rock band?
“For the camaraderie,” explained Awais, the bassist for Rebel Club. “We are brothers. We rely on each other. There is nothing more rewarding than building something together as a band. Solo glory doesn’t interest us. It’s a lonely path.”
Members of Goshtkhor echoed this sentiment. For emerging underground bands, rock is not merely a genre; it’s a way of life. It’s described as an alternative culture to the prevailing social fabric, one defined by taking charge of one’s life in every sense.
“I think our people enjoy being sad and listening to sad music to feel even sadder,” Haziq, Rebel Club’s lead guitarist, theorised. “As a nation, we have a bit of a victim-complex mindset. ‘She left me, so I’ll make everything about that now’. Rock isn’t about running away from problems or drowning in them. Rock is about confronting whatever life throws at you head-on.
“They gave hip hop Gully Boy and gave us Rockstar,” he added. “Another story about a sad man crying over heartbreak, with nothing to do with the rebellious spirit of rock.”
Globally, recession pop tends to manifest as party music. In Pakistan, however, recession pop looks different. Our charts are dominated by sad-boy anthems and heartbreak ballads, regardless of the economic moment. We are, after all, deeply attached to our tragedies.
“Aggression isn’t met well here,” Aaiz added. “We like sob stories. But that’s what we’re trying to confront. We want people to take charge of their emotional worlds and find some agency.”
The band members also reflected on what they see as a link between “sedative music” and incel culture. When young men internalise a victim mindset instead of redirecting emotion into action, they remain stuck in a depressive limbo.
“It’s about time we stop romanticising aik tarfa pyaar (one-sided love) and nakaam mohabbat (incomplete love),” Aaiz said. “Find some agency in your life and have some fun.”
Rebel Club’s debut EP, Phirse Waapis Aaraha Hai Rock n’ Roll, is described by its creators as a shot in the dark.
“We were reading literature, philosophy, religion, politics — the lyrics came organically,” said Awais. “Rock almost always has a political edge, and that’s evident in our music.”
The progressive politics of the EP are unmistakable. Two tracks, ‘Naara-e-Baghawat’ and ‘Khamosh Ab Nahi’, draw direct inspiration from the Aurat March.
“Our band came together around the same time the Aurat March became a major force in 2019,” Aaiz recalled. “The way the march openly challenged patriarchy was deeply inspiring.”
The band describes its politics as anarcho-punk: no person and no idea is sacred, and everything must be questioned. At first glance, this might sound bleak. Where does hope come from?
“From nurturing our community,” Aaiz said. “We don’t want to wait for change. We want to create the change we can, around us. That’s hope.”
Class and gender dynamics within the rock scene also warrant attention. This is something the members of Rebel Club are already cognisant of as they unpack layers of their own privilege in terms of class, gender, ethnicity and even geography.
“Gender will happen first and it already is,” the band observed. “The audience ratio at our gigs was close to 40:60. Women were moshing and fully participating.”
As for class inclusivity, they joked, “A Bollywood movie would help.”
Monoculture is dead, and underground rock musicians believe that is a good thing.
Individualised listening experiences are not inherently harmful but gone are the days when one song or artist could dominate entirely. Digital streaming has fractured listening habits beyond repair.
“This is how subcultures thrive,” Hasan noted. “People find music that resonates with them and eventually find a community around it.”
Both Rebel Club and Goshtkhor are still stunned by the response to their self-organised tour.
“It’s been surreal,” said Hamza, drummer of Goshtkhor. “We never imagined playing sold-out venues. It felt like people were waiting for something like this to finally happen.”
There is a clear appetite for rock among Pakistan’s urban youth, but whether this appetite is purely musical or rooted in a deeper desire for emotional release remains an open question. After all, head bopping can never fully replace what head banging offers.
The audience is energised. So what’s next?
The same lineup of bands, along with others, is planning a nationwide tour, with ambitions to eventually scale across South Asia.
“We’re still processing what happened,” Haziq admitted. “We expected 20 people at most and ended up with oversold venues.”
“When we wrote ‘Phirse Waapis Aaraha Hai Rock n’ Roll’, it was wishful thinking,” Aaiz added. “It was screaming into the void and hoping someone screamed back. And someone did. In fact, many people did.”
Desi rock is back. And this renaissance isn’t just about sound; it’s about reclaiming community, agency, and emotional release in a culture that wants you to conform.
Cover video via Rebel Club/Instagram