Catching up with Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan
By Maliha Rehman
Shafqat Amanat Ali hasn’t performed in the U.S. for a very long time and this is not because of lack of offers. “The organizers in America don’t want to pay the travel expenses for my musicians,” he explains. “Most performers are happy going abroad on their own and lip-syncing at concerts. But I prefer going live. I think I’ve lost out on quite a lot of money because of this.”
That’s the seventh generation progeny of the Patiala gharana for you. He won’t sing songs just for the sake of staying in the news and he certainly won’t lip-sync in concerts in order to earn a quick buck. Shafqat Amanat Ali takes his singing very seriously – he says that he had wanted to be a singer from as far back as he can remember – and he believes in being sincere to his work.