This country star brings a Pakistani vibe to his songs : NPR

Singer-songwriter Mo Sabri loves country music and Pakistani devotional music. His new music reflects both genres.

Mo Sabri

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Mo Sabri

When the singer-songwriter Mo Sabri growing up in East Tennessee, his Pakistani immigrant parents loved playing the swirling, rhythmic sounds of qawwaliSufi Muslim devotional music.

They also loved playing country classics by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. After all, Sabri’s hometown of Johnson City is a 30-minute drive from Bristol, Tennessee, known as the birthplace of country music.

These musical influences would have a profound effect on Sabri. Today, he’s a country music artist in Nashville who proudly identifies as a Pakistani American and a Muslim – and creates music with inspiration from those worlds. On his YouTube channel, you will find original country songs like “Married in a barn“but also a cover of the qawwali”Tajdar and Haram“.

And he enters the history of music. On May 31, this Muslim country singer will perform with the Nashville Symphony. They will perform an orchestral rendition of his new album, Tennessee Desia unique fusion of Appalachian country sounds and qawwali, which comes from the Arabic word qaulmeaning “to speak”.

“It’s a really big deal,” says Charles Alexandera digital strategist of Malaysian Indian descent who has been working in the Nashville music industry for 16 years. “It speaks volumes about the diversity and representation of the types of music that sprouted in Tennessee.”

As for Sabri, her next show is a return to her roots. “In a way, it reflects who I am as a first-generation American, half country, half-desi“, he says. “Desi” refers to those in the South Asian diaspora.

“I feel freer writing country music”

Even if country, coming from black music, is associated with a white conservative audienceit seemed like the natural fit for Sabri as a musical artist. In Johnson City, his life resembled the lyrics of the country music songs he listened to.

“There were a lot of people sitting on your porch and watching the sunset, driving down the road in your truck with the windows down,” he says.

Sabri was also drawn to the country because of its quest for truth, he says. “I feel freer writing country music. It’s almost punk rock – I can talk about being Muslim where most people think I shouldn’t or can’t.”

“More similar than different”

Sabri says he began delving into qawwali at the start of the pandemic as a way to connect with his parents and culture. “As I have never experienced [in Pakistan]it was like a way to stay in touch with my heritage,” he says.

And, he notes, he can have a distant link with the Sabri Brothersthe famous qawwali duo from Pakistan. “So I felt a responsibility to eventually try to honor the genre,” he says.

Qawwali, originating from India and Pakistan, is a musical performance of Sufi Muslim poetry – think Rumi and Hafez – infusing chants, claps and drumbeats to bring listeners to ecstatic heights.

At home and at gatherings with the few South Asian families in Johnson City, the music “always got people dancing and clapping,” Sabri recalls.

Tennessee Desi includes a cover of the bluegrass song “Rocky summit“, an ode to the hills of Tennessee, and a qawwali called “Allah Hoo,” which tells the story of the creation of Islam. While preparing for the concert, Sabri discovered that the two genres were “more similar than different,” he says.

“Country is Appalachian folk music and qawwali is South Asian folk music,” he says. Religion is also an important theme in both genres.

One of the challenges of mixing the two genres was that “qawwali doesn’t necessarily follow a Western scale, which has 12 notes,” he says. “In Eastern music, there are microtones in between.”

There are techniques to “artistically imitate the microtonal aspect,” such as slide guitar, common in country and blues music, Sabri says. “You have a piece of metal placed on the string [of the guitar]and now the rating is no longer accurate.

Music that bridges divides

So what do Americans think of Sabri’s fusion of country and qawwali music? Last year he played a show in Indiana and tested an early version of Tennessee Desi staged.

“There were people from all political sides, country people and Desi aunties in the audience, and they were all enjoying it in different ways,” he says. “This testifies to the fact that there is are people from the South who love fusion, and there are South Asians who love country music.”

Sabri also has a few listeners from South Asia. On his YouTube, commentators from the region praised his resumption of qawwali”Tajdar and Haram“.

“Well, you made my day with these beautiful words that you said in English, I never believed that these verses could be taken to such heights thanks to the wonders of translation,” wrote one user.

“Enchanting,” wrote another.

Some users, however, criticized its pronunciation. “Good effort,” another user wrote. “You need to gain a little more control over your tongue. I’m sure in time you will become a household name.”

Sabri admits that his Urdu could be better. Although he understands the language fluently, “I’m a little slow when it comes to speaking,” he says.

“From the Mountains of Pakistan to the Mountains of East Tennessee”

Sabri has never been to Pakistan, but if he does, he says he “would love to visit the place where my parents grew up, near Rawalpindi.”

His father immigrated to the United States in the 1970s and his mother in the 1980s. “My parents are from the mountains of Pakistan and settled in the mountains of East Tennessee,” he says. “They wanted my siblings and I to have opportunities they never had and to be successful.”

The fact that he’s blending the music of his parents’ home country with the music of the region he grew up in – on such a big stage – is coming full circle for Sabri.

He thinks this will be the case for his parents too. “The fact that I’m playing at the Symphony,” he says, “is their American dream come true.”