Afghan protest singer Elaha Soroor defied tradition to become a musician, finding fame on the TV talent show Afghan Star before being forced to flee her home country after she was targeted by fundamentalists. She became known in the West via her collaboration with experimental world music duo Kefaya on their 2019 album Songs of Our Mothers. A member of the Hazara ethnic minority group, Soroor was born to Iranian and Ghanaian refugees; the family returned to Afghanistan when she was 16 after the fall of the Taliban. While still in high school, she became a news reporter at a local radio station and defied tradition by teaching literacy and math to young girls who had been denied an education under the Taliban. As a result, just two years after settling there, her family was forced to flee their home in Kunduz for Kabul. Rebelling against her parents' wishes, Soroor became a singer, a career not considered suitable for young women in Afghanistan's deeply conservative traditional culture. In 2009 she found fame by appearing on the TV talent show Afghan Star, but was the target of a backlash after recording songs (most notably "Sangsar") critical of Afghan culture and its oppressive attitudes toward women. Refusing to back down, she became an outspoken critic of conservative values, leading to an estrangement from her family and assassination attempts by fundamentalists. As a result, she herself became a refugee, fleeing to England, where she was introduced to the experimental world music duo Kefaya. Welcoming her into their collective, they made her the lead vocalist on their 2019 sophomore album Songs of Our Mothers. The album was a collection of traditional Farsi women's folk songs reinterpreted through myriad genres, from jazz and dub to Indian classical, electronica, and electric rock. ~ John D. Buchanan