Pakistani singer, composer, and producer Arooj Aftab creates a captivating blend of neo-Sufi, classical minimalism, jazz, electronic music, and other disparate styles. After moving to New York City in the late 2000s, she became active as a film composer. Throughout the 2010s, Aftab's broad stylistic mix was reflected in her performances, which ranged from major venues like New York's Lincoln Center and Berlin's Haus der Kulturen der Welt to smaller jazz and indie rock clubs. Her choice of collaborators is similarly diverse and includes names like Esperanza Spalding and DJ /rupture. Aftab's first two albums, 2014's Bird Under Water and 2018's Siren Islands, earned critical acclaim. In 2022, she became the first-ever Pakistani artist to win a Grammy Award when the song "Mohabbat" from her third album, Vulture Prince, took home the prize for Best Global Music Performance. Love in Exile, with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily, appeared in 2023.