Meet Aur: The Pakistani boyband aiming to make Urdu part of the pop music conversation

Trio who teamed up with former One Direction star for new version of their hit song Tu Hai Kahan

Popular Pakistani Boy Band Aur. Antonie Robertson/The National

When Zayn Malik wants to collaborate, it's best to jump at the opportunity.

Since departing One Direction in 2015 to pursue a solo career, Malik has collaborated sparingly with other artists, contributing his talents to just five tracks. These include a 2016 remix of Chris Brown's RnB hit Back to Sleep and the 2019 song Rumors by Latin-American singer Sabrina Claudio.

Malik's latest collaboration, his first guest vocal in five years, is arguably his most personal yet. He was born to a Pakistani father and British mother and the new version of 2023 hit Tu Hai Kahan by Aur – there was one previously released without Malik's contribution – has him singing in Urdu for the first time.

It has given Aur the kind of global profile they could have only dreamt off when they formed in Karachi in 2020. Speaking to The National, the trio reaffirmed their intention to make the Urdu language part of the global pop music conversation.

“It is time for Urdu to shine,” says singer Usama Ali. “This is really what motivates us because it’s a beautiful language rich in meaning and poetry. But it doesn’t have the major profile that Hindi, for example, has because the Pakistani entertainment industry is not as powerful as India's. So, for Zayn Malik to actually ask us if he could collaborate was amazing. We were excited because he was excited.”

As manager Ameen Haq tells it, working with Malik is pretty straight forward: “You don’t call him. He calls you.” Contact was made late last year, when the song already topped the Spotify charts in Pakistani and India.

“Zayn went on a FaceTime call with Aur and he was so encouraging and told the guys how it made him fall in love with the Urdu language,” Haq recalled. “So, when it came time to do a collaboration with him, he was adamant that he wanted to sing in Urdu and he told us how he took Urdu classes to nail it.”

The fresh version, released in January is more dynamic than the original, Malik’s high tenor offsetting the understated melodic rapping by Ali and Ahad Khan. However, that winning ethereal production by third member Raffey Anwar, with its ambient keyboards and sparse guitar, remains.

“It's a new sound that people don’t expect from Pakistan and that’s really because there is no real sound that you can say that it’s ours,” Anwar says. “For example, the most popular music in Pakistan is folk music which is only heard inside the country. But there is no particular genre from Pakistan that has gone global and this is really what we want to build.”

It is that mix of ambition and commitment that drew Haq to manage the group last year, merely weeks after Tu Hai Kahan was building a slow and steady online buzz. He admits he wasn’t initially a fan of the song due to its languid structure.

“It is nearly five minutes long and the verses are nearly two minutes each, so from a strictly analytical point of view, it just wasn't supposed to work,” he says. “But I realised that I was just using my head. Once I allowed myself to just feel it, the song just touches the heart because it is so beautiful and poetic.”

Ali, who views himself as more of a poet than singer, recalls the group being confident of the lyrics. Tu Hai Kahan, which means “where have you gone”, is about a person's quest for true love with all of life's twists and turns.

“The lyrics are conversational and the kind of Urdu you would hear every day,” Ali says. “We wanted the song to feel like we are just talking to you directly, so I was not really concerned about making things rhyme. I just wanted to make people feel something … if they understand the language or not.”

Khan adds: “Everyone relates to it in different ways. Whether it’s just from the chilled sounds to the lyrics. The song could be talking about their partner or it could be about someone trying to find their purpose after losing a parent. It means different things to different people.”

When it comes to the wider industry, Tu Hai Kahan’s success also has the music industry taking note. With Pakistan having the sixth largest diaspora community, according to the World Economic forum, it can also be a potentially lucrative slice of the touring market.

All eyes will be on Aur as they join Pakistani singer Asim Zahar on an eight-date US tour organised by Live Nation. The group have a new single called Jeet Ki Awaz and Ali says the best is yet to come from Pakistani musicians.

“It's an honour because we want to help open these doors for other Pakistani artists in the future,” Ali says. “Some big promoters don't know how to do Urdu concerts professionally and internationally. We want to show them that anything is possible.”