Abida Parveen is, by common agreement, the greatest living voice in Sufi music — a singer who can fill a stadium and still sound as though she is alone with God. If you are meeting her for the first time, here is a map.
Start here
Begin with Tu Jhoom, her overwhelming Coke Studio duet with Naseebo Lal. Then Tu Ne Deewana Banaya and Dhoondo Gay, and her meeting with a younger generation on Pardadari alongside Atif Aslam.
The poets she carries
Abida sings the great Sufi poets — Bulleh Shah, Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, Khwaja Ghulam Farid — across Urdu, Sindhi, Saraiki and Punjabi. To hear the tradition around her, follow it into Saieen Zahoor's Punjabi kalam, the Qawwali Classics, or the Sindhi and Saraiki Sufi worlds she moves through so freely.
Then simply lose yourself in her full catalogue.