Ali Sethi is a Pakistani-American writer and musician whose work explores South Asianidentity. As a queer artist, Sethi is known for marshalling tradition in ways that upend binaries. Since 2015, Sethi has made music that blurs the lines between traditional and modern, and East and West. He has been a fixture on Pakistan’s Coke Studio television programme, collaborating with the likes of Pakistani singer and composer Abida Parveen, and has contributed to movie soundtracks and genre-busting albums, including Riz Ahmed’s “Swet Shop Boys,” Nicolas Jaar’s “Intiha” and Carnegie Hall’s multimedia orchestral work “Where We Lost Our Shadows.”
In 2022, his song “Pasoori” earned over a billion streams and was Google’s most “hummed-to-search” song in the world. That same year, Sethi was named to the Time 100 Next list. He is a graduate of Harvard University.