Coke Studio is one of the biggest art exports of Pakistan: Xulfi

As the 14th season of Coke Studio kicks off in full swing, with the first episode featuring two music veterans, Abida Parveen and Naseebo Lal, the platform’s official YouTube channel has also released a conversation with this season’s producer, Xulfi, and the other collaborators who worked behind the scenes this season.

 

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Speaking about the show, Xulfi acknowledged that Coke Studio is one of the biggest responsibilities and opportunities for musicians to represent Pakistan at a global level. He claimed that the show has been watched in almost 180 countries.

The producer highlighted that the new crop of musicians and producers are extremely valuable to the industry, which is why he assembled a team of associate producers which include the likes of  Sherry Khattak, Adnan Dhool, Abdullah Siddiqui and ActionZain.

“The situation of music has changed. People have opened their hearts to so many different genres. There is also a new crop of artists and singers and people are really listening to what they have to say. For me to bring them all together into one unified act, that was just not possible without a collaborative effort,” he shares.

Perhaps the biggest achievement of this season is that every song is an original track – as revealed in the video. The music platform has been criticized over the years for giving rise to cover culture, where musicians simply perform cover versions of other songs while losing the artistic ability to write new, original music.

Here’s hoping Coke Studio shakes things up this year.