It’s been over a week since one of the most incredible creative forces in the music industry unexpectedly and tragically passed away, and I’m still struggling to find the words to talk about her. Singer, songwriter, musician and producer Haniya Aslam, one of Pakistan’s most beloved and talented musicians, passed away last Sunday after suffering a cardiac arrest.

She was one half of the musical duo Zeb and Haniya, which introduced iconic, timeless singles to Pakistan’s music landscape. The news of her passing was confirmed online by cousin and bandmate Zeb Bangash. She left members of the music and entertainment industry in shock.

“Go with God you beautiful soul,” posted iconic singer songwriter Ali Azmat on a music clip by concert organiser and music curator Raania Azam Khan Durrani. In the clip, Haniya is performing at a venue managed by Durrani in Hunza, Gilgit Baltistan. This was most likely her very last performance.

Seemingly at a loss for words, musician and producer Mekaal Hasan, who had produced Zeb and Haniya’s very first album, simply commented “Heartbroken” on the same video.

Singer, songwriter, musician and producer Haniya Aslam, who tragically passed away on August 12, shunned the trappings of fame after skyrocketing to popular acclaim as one half of the Zeb and Haniya band. For her, her musical integrity and creativity was far more important. And that legacy will live on…

“I don’t know where to begin,” posted filmmaker Mehreen Jabbar, who had often collaborated with Haniya in her films and television series. “I could speak of the music she produced, the songs she sang, and how Zeb and Haniya as a band brought joy and pathos to me and so many others.

“I could share how she was an incredible collaborator on so many of my projects — starting with Daam, Dobara Phir Se, Lala Begum, Ek Jhooti Love Story and finally Farar, where she lent [me] one of my favourite songs, Aayi Re, as well as the background score. But beyond her artistic gifts, she was a soft-spoken, non-judgemental, kind, endlessly curious and loving person.

“It’s a shock and it feels unfair to be deprived of her presence. There was so much more she had to give, but she also left us with so much to cherish and celebrate. Haniya, you will be missed, you have no idea…” she finished.

There was an immense outpouring of shock and grief when her death was confirmed, and which continues to date.

Born in Kohat, Pakistan, Haniya spent her early years moving across the country as her father was in government service. She often spoke about how, coming from a musically inclined family, encouraged her foray into this art form from a very early age.

In a section of the press, she had once mentioned that, “In my family, when you got together and wanted to have fun, there were two things you could do: eat or play music.”

Sometime in early 2001, she collaborated with her cousin Zebunissa ‘Zeb’ Bangash and released their first-ever single, Chup, while they were still in college. The track became an unexpected hit and propelled them into stardom. They continued collaborating together, fusing traditional Eastern music with Western influences, through several albums, releasing some of the most well-known earworms in Pakistan’s music history.

The duo were featured on several seasons of Coke Studio (CS) and gave the world timeless hits, such as the live, re-rendition of Paimona, Bibi Sanam Janam, Rona Chorr Diya, Chal Diye and Kya Khayal Hai — the latter was for an Indian programme called The Dewarists.

I remember sitting with her up in the gallery when the second season of CS was being recorded, just over a decade ago. We were in the shadows, watching other artists set up and record below. While some members of the house band around us could be seen entertaining others on and off the stage, Haniya appeared quieter in comparison and almost content with letting others enjoy the attention they were soliciting.

She seemed very laid-back, like someone who enjoyed her space but was also friendly. You just had to go to her rather than wait for her to come to you.

At this point, her band had enjoyed a lot of play on radio, they had a couple of videos out, were becoming popular in the entertainment industry, and had recorded their debut album with Mekaal Hasan. It was the beginning of the blinding spotlight that this recording of CS was about to push them into.

That day, sitting quietly up in the gallery looking down at the ‘real’ stars, we (or rather she, to me they had already ‘made it’) had no idea how her life was about to change. Most importantly, how fast that change would be.

But while she enjoyed the creative freedom music afforded her, she was never comfortable with the fame and the attention that came with it. From relative anonymity to instant stardom, sometime in 2007, she left all of it behind and moved to another continent in 2014, when her eponymously titled band with her cousin, Zeb and Haniya, was at its musical peak.

There she studied music engineering. She returned towards the end of 2017 and set up her own musical space, Citrus Studio, in Islamabad.

“Stepping out of Zeb and Haniya was probably one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever made but, at the end of the day, it was too hard on my mental health,” Haniya had said to me over the phone from her studio in Islamabad after she returned. “[It was] that lifestyle. You need a specific kind of temperament to be a touring musician.”

A temperament, she confessed, she did not have. She loved, however, the space she had made for herself. It was a slice of her own personal heaven. A place where she truly felt at home. And from where she continued to work on her craft, endlessly releasing one creative gift to the universe after another.

There was Aayi Re, a beautiful earthy number that incorporates a folksy sound with more contemporary instruments — a style and sound Haniya seems to have developed as her own — and Dunya, which featured the Islamabad-based a cappella act Gintaara, and more.

The music industry’s shyest and gentlest soul may not be anymore, but her music and her legacy will live on forever.

Published in Dawn, ICON, August 25th, 2024