From discovering and mentoring new talent through Nescafé Basement (NB) to reimagining the possibilities of mainstream music as the producer of the last two seasons of Coke Studio (CS) Pakistan, Xulfi has consistently pushed the boundaries of collaboration, storytelling and sonic innovation. His latest venture, Humnava (which means ‘having the same thought’ or ‘speaking in unison’ in Urdu) expands that vision beyond traditional music platforms.
Conceived as a global music and arts residency, the project brought together more than 30 musicians, producers and creatives from Pakistan and around the world to live, create and record music together in the mountains of Hunza. Rooted in cultural exchange and collective creativity, Humnava seeks to position Pakistan not only as a source of artistic talent but as a meeting point for global collaboration.
In this conversation with Icon, Xulfi reflects on the making of Humnava, why Hunza became the natural home for its inaugural season and how his experiences while producing Coke Studio informed his desire to create a more immersive, residency-based model for music making.
He also shares his thoughts on nurturing artistic communities, preserving local cultures through music and imagining new possibilities for Pakistan’s creative future.
BUILDING NEW MUSICAL WORLDS
For most people, the release of a major project marks an ending. For Xulfi, it feels more like turning a page. As the final songs from Humnava make their way into the world, he admits he still hasn’t fully processed what the project means to him. The emotions, he opines, arrive later.
“I’ve been thinking about what I’m feeling when the last song releases for some time now,” he says. “And I have nothing to say in regard to this. I don’t know how I feel afterwards.” After a pause, he adds, “Maybe it’s happening at a deeper subconscious level. Right now, it hasn’t hit me. It takes time and then it really hits me.”
How do you reinvent a phenomenon like Coke Studio? Why did Hunza become the home of Humnava? And what drives Xulfi’s relentless search for new talent? The producer behind some of Pakistan’s most influential music platforms discusses creativity, risk-taking and his dream of turning Pakistan into a global music powerhouse ew figures have shaped the sound of contemporary Pakistani music as profoundly as Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan, better known as Xulfi.
Perhaps that is because Humnava was never meant to be an endpoint. Like NB and CS, it is part of a much larger mission.
“For me, the mission is so broad that this is just one chapter of a lot of things I have in mind,” he says. “I never felt ‘what do I do after this?’ after Coke Studio either. It’s just one chapter of a big book.”
THE BUSINESS OF HOPE
Long before he became the face of Pakistan’s biggest music platforms, Xulfi’s career was built on finding people nobody else was looking at and his philosophy has remained remarkably consistent.
“I’ve never been an advocate of having big names tell a story,” he says. “I’ve always been an advocate of having the right people tell the story.”
That belief defined NB, in which he introduced a generation of emerging musicians to mainstream audiences. But he insists the instinct to discover talent predates NB.
“My journey from the start has been one of discovery and scouting,” he says. “This has been happening since the days of EP [Entity Paradigm]” — a rock band that he was part of in the early 2000s.
For Xulfi, the problem has always been structural. Pakistan’s music industry lacks the infrastructure and opportunities that allow new artists to thrive, forcing audiences to cycle through the same familiar faces.
“The people I discovered became a form of hope for me,” he says. “We don’t have proper platforms, so you keep seeing the same people over and over again.”
That perspective has also left him feeling dissociated from the mainstream, despite being one of the country’s most influential producers.
“Even after all these years, I still feel like an outsider to the industry,” he says, with a laugh. “I feel a lot of freedom working outside conventional boundaries. I don’t put myself in a box. I don’t even know if the box exists.”
REINVENTING COKE STUDIO
When Xulfi took over CS, he was stepping into one of Pakistan’s most successful entertainment properties. Conventional wisdom suggested preserving what already worked. Instead, he rewrote the rulebook.
“My Coke Studio journey could have started much earlier,” he reveals. “But if I’m coming into something, I’m okay with surrendering — I just want to come with a certain belief.”
That belief rested on two principles: discovering new talent and creating original music. “We brought this idea that we will not do any covers in Coke Studio,” he says. “We will do originals.”
The decision was not merely artistic; it was strategic. “If Pakistan wanted to go global, we couldn’t do that through covers. We had to create original music.”
From the outset, he envisioned CS as something larger than a local success story. “Even in the beginning, I had written in the manifesto that we needed to go to the global charts.”
At the time, the idea sounded unrealistic. “Even saying ‘We will reach global charts’ wouldn’t have sat well with everyone in the room because it’s such an unprecedented thing to say.”
Yet, songs such as ‘Pasoori’, ‘Peechay Hutt’, ‘Kana Yari’, ‘Tu Jhoom’ etc would eventually prove that ambition right.
He also challenged the show’s visual language. The iconic performance stage that had defined CS for over a decade was replaced by narrative-driven worlds, intimate settings and cinematic storytelling.
“I don’t know what kind of musician I am,” he says. “But I can tell you that I love telling stories.”
The traditional stage, he felt, did not serve every artist equally. “For some stars, the stage is the story. But there are many people who aren’t meant to be on stage. If we want to tell everyone’s stories, we need to create spaces where people feel like they belong.”
THE COURAGE TO IMAGINE THE IMPOSSIBLE
After listening to Xulfi explain his creative process, one thing becomes clear: he rarely thinks in terms of limitations. When asked where his seemingly unshakeable confidence comes from, he struggles to answer.
“I really don’t know where it comes from,” he says. “I look around and feel like people stop themselves. They create limits for themselves.”
His approach is rooted less in certainty than in intuition. “I’m always ready to feel things,” he says. “The moment you disconnect yourself from feeling, you become numb. And when you become numb, your ego comes into play.”
As someone without formal musical training, he describes himself as deeply guided by instinct, signs and emotional sensitivity.
“I believe in signs. Even if I dream about something, I feel like it’s a sign. When you live like this, anything seems possible. Why limit ourselves?”
That doesn’t mean he never experiences doubt.
“Who doesn’t have doubts?” he asks. “Whenever I have them, I go back to the beginning — why am I doing this?”
The answer, he says, is usually found in reconnecting with his original purpose.
“Sometimes, you’re carrying baggage that’s influencing your behaviour. When you make peace with yourself, you remove doubt.”
CURIOSITY AS A WAY OF LIFE
For someone who seems constantly to be in motion, Xulfi rejects the idea that he is a workaholic. Instead, he identifies as something else entirely: “I’m curious.” The answer comes instantly. He traces that curiosity back to childhood, when he was fascinated by mathematics and science.
“Math doesn’t just teach you logic. It’s also a way of life.”
Today, that same curiosity extends far beyond music. In recent years, he has become increasingly focused on health and personal growth. “My health journey has become as important as my music journey — if not more.”
Whether at the gym or travelling abroad, he actively seeks out conversations with strangers. “I make friends with everyone at the gym because I want to know what they’re thinking, what they’re feeling, what makes them them.”
Then he laughs: “Maybe that’s been the driving force all along.”
Even after all these years, I still feel like an outsider to the industry,” Xulfi says, with a laugh. “I feel a lot of freedom working outside conventional boundaries. I don’t put myself in a box. I don’t even know if the box exists.”
WHY HUNZA?
The seeds of Humnava emerged from a simple but ambitious belief: music can connect people who might otherwise have nothing in common.
“I realised this during Coke Studio,” Xulfi says. “Indian and Pakistani audiences don’t agree on bigger things, but they are united in their experience of music.”
If music could bridge borders digitally, he wondered, what might happen if artists crossed those borders physically? “Let’s have people come from different parts of the world to Pakistan,” he asserts. “Music can mend hearts, build bridges and break stereotypes.”
Hunza became the natural setting for that experiment. The choice was not merely aesthetic. The landscape forced artists to leave behind their comfort zones and immerse themselves in a shared experience. The challenges were real. During his first scouting trip, Xulfi realised how physically demanding the terrain would be.
“I was struggling to climb. I slipped as well,” he laughs. “Everybody laughed at me.”
The experience prompted him to take his health more seriously. But the mountains also revealed something deeper: the importance of surrounding yourself with people who embrace challenges rather than avoiding them.
When he proposed recording live music in the mountains, Pakistan’s leading live sound engineers did not question the logistics. They got excited. “That’s the kind of team I work with,” he says. “They go above and beyond to make things possible.”
Then comes a lesson that seems to apply equally to music, business and life: “You have to find your tribe.”
FINDING THE BUSKERS
If there is a defining philosophy behind Humnava, it may be found in an unexpected place: buskers. Street musicians.
“I’ve found buskers to be some of the most interesting people,” Xulfi says. Despite difficult circumstances, these street musicians continue to perform, connect and bring life to public spaces. “Even during hardships, they perform and treat people nicely.”
For Humnava, he sought artists who shared that spirit.
“We were looking for people who had the mentality of buskers.”
By this, he means people who would collaborate without vanity. People who remained open to others. People who understood music as a shared experience rather than a competition.
“The idea was to work with people who can work without egos,” says Xulfi. “I want them to shed all of their layers and come to me as they are, at the core of who they are, so we can create something authentic. Audiences know when you are not being authentic.”
The most notable artists associated with Season 1 of Humnava include Rizwan Abbas and Maheen Sattar (from Hunza), singer-songwriter Bakrin Timlfati (Algeria), Amine Laroug (Algeria), Dorian Jonas Goetsh, an electronic DJ (Germany), Elijah Bwalya (Zambia), Joshua Bwalya (Zambia), Peter John Christopher (France), Blaise Merlin, a violinist and Lina Belaid, a cello player (France).
The project also included Naveed Deevon, the Gojal Twins, Sherry Khattak, Muhammad Hunaid, Mujeeb Ur Rehman and other musicians from Hunza’s folk traditions.
The true achievement of Humnava lies in the remarkable mix of artists it brought together in Hunza. As mentioned earlier, over 30 musicians, singers, instrumentalists and producers from Pakistan, France, Germany, Algeria and Zambia lived and created together, resulting in collaborations that would have been difficult to imagine within the confines of a conventional music show.
The season opened with ‘Hairan Amanam’, a Burushaski-language ode to wonder, featuring Hunza’s Rizwan Abbas and Maheen Sattar alongside Bakrin Timlfati and Amine Laroug, Dorian Jonas Goetsh, and a collective of Pakistani instrumentalists.
As the season unfolded, Humnava continued to blur borders through songs such as ‘Qataghani’, which showcased Bakrin Timlfati, ‘Sway’, a celebration of childhood and mountain life featuring artists from Zambia, France, Algeria and Pakistan, and ‘Holoyor’, which brought together Naveed Deevon, the Gojal Twins and Sherry Khattak in a contemporary interpretation of northern folk traditions.
Other releases — including ‘Lost in Love’, ‘Noor-i-Nazar’, ‘Koi Achhi Khabar’, ‘Isekta’ and ‘Darmaan’ — further expanded the project’s sonic palette, weaving together qawwali, folk, regional languages and contemporary global production. The line-up reflected Xulfi’s larger vision for Humnava: not to be a showcase of celebrities, but a gathering of artists willing to collaborate across cultures, languages and musical traditions in pursuit of something entirely new.
HOW HUNZA SHAPED HUMNAVA
For Xulfi, choosing Hunza as the birthplace of Humnava was never simply about finding a beautiful backdrop. It was about finding a place where music already exists as a way of life.
“Hunza is a musically progressive place,” he says. “It runs in people’s blood there and it’s part of the educational system and culture.”
The producer recalls meeting locals and discovering that almost everyone — young or old — could sing, play an instrument or share a melody rooted in the region’s rich musical traditions.
“That’s why I wanted to start from Hunza. Music is part of the fabric of life there. There was no better place to begin.”
However, the landscape shaped more than the visuals. Xulfi believes the environment fundamentally influenced the creative process itself. Removed from the distractions and expectations of city life, artists were encouraged to surrender to the experience and to one another.
“When people leave their usual surroundings and come to a place such as Hunza, they express themselves differently,” he says. “It became a larger cultural experience for everyone involved. I felt it would help them dig deep within themselves as artists.”
Even the mountains found their way into the music. Recording outdoors presented technical challenges, but also unexpected rewards.
“The echoes in the mountains are a beautiful thing. You can hear every single beat,” he explains. “When you’re recording in a place with no walls, there are no reflections, so the recordings are actually much cleaner.”
Rather than eliminating every trace of the environment, he chose to embrace it.
“If you listen closely, we’ve left some of the ambient sounds in. The wind, the atmosphere — they became part of the emotional texture of the songs.”
KEEPING HOPE ALIVE FOR THE FUTURE
As our conversation draws to a close, it becomes clear that Humnava is only one expression of a much larger creative ambition. Xulfi reveals that he hopes to explore filmmaking in the future.
“There are stories I want to tell,” he says. “Experiences and observations on a human level that I want to see brought to life.”
However, for now, his focus remains fixed on a singular goal: elevating Pakistani music on the global stage. “For a long time, the hope that I’ve been carrying is that this country will become a global music powerhouse,” he says.
Everything else — the platforms, the formats, even the projects themselves — is secondary. “We need to keep doing things that keep the hope alive and keep people connected to Pakistani art and music.”
For someone who views every achievement as merely another chapter in a much larger story, Humnava feels less like a destination than the beginning of yet another journey.
In many ways, it’s the same philosophy that has guided Xulfi from EP to NB, from CS to Humnava: a belief that talent can come from anywhere, that possibility expands when people connect, and that the most meaningful stories are often told by those still waiting to be heard.
And for Xulfi, the story is still only beginning.
The writer is a journalist, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and a radio correspondent. She can be reached at syed.madeeha@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, ICON, June 28th, 2026