Arooj Aftab mesmerizes, brings out Heems & Cautious Clay @ Summerstage w/ Sid Sriram, Emel & more (pics)

Arooj Aftab‘s new album Night Reign is one of our favorites of 2024 so far, and her tour supporting it brought her to NYC on Wednesday night (7/24) for a free show at SummerStage in Central Park. DJ Rekha of Basement Bhangra fame was set up on a platform to the side of the stage, and pointed out how great it was to be playing with their friend Arooj at Summerstage where the final edition of Basement Bhangra took place in 2017, after 20 years at SOB’s. They got things started right after doors and DJ’d between sets while also attempting to hype of the crowd and get those sitting on blankets to stand up.

We’ve long been fans of Tunisian-American singer-songwriter Emel Mathlouthi, who took to the stage joined by a percussionist and a keyboard player. She has a long history of using her art to fight for the liberty of Arab peoples, including when her song “Kelmti Horra” became an anthem for protesters during the Arab Spring uprising in 2010, and she had footage of destruction in Gaza and interviews with Palestinian children expressing their hopes for a better, safer, freer future projected on the screen onstage during her song “Holm (A Dream),” which she introduced by emphasizing the importance of fighting for freedom and equal rights for everyone. 

Sid Sriram, an acclaimed Bollywood musician who’s also a Def Jam-signed R&B singer and Bon Iver associate that recently played Coachella and Bonnaroo, admitted that he’d had a fever the night before, and had been unsure if he’d be able to perform, but he powered through an R&B-heavy set that included a cover of Alanis Morissette’s City of Angels soundtrack song “Uninvited,” and he closed things out with an even more powerful rendition of a prayer that he said his mother taught him as a child.

It was an impressive lineup, but the night’s true headliner Arooj Aftab played a mix of her mesmerizing new and old material as the sun set and into the night (or until about 9:50pm). As usual, Arooj’s between-song banter was just as memorable as her beautiful songs: introducing her amazing backing band (guitarist Camila Meza, violinist Darian Donovan Thomas, drummer Engin Kaan Gunaydin, and bassist Petros Klampanis), she said, “Give it up for these guys. They are so unapologetically good that I can stand here, drink wine, and fuck around!” In response to a shout of “I love you” from someone in the crowd with, we got “I love you too. How much money do you have?” She also threw free shirts into the crowd, with a surprise inside them — a small bottle of Jameson. That served as an introduction to Night Reign track “Whiskey,” part of which she sang directly to Padma Lakshmi who was watching from the VIP section, as Arooj let the entire crowd know. When someone called her cellphone towards the end of the set, she answered and asked them to text her later, since she’d taken out her phone to take a selfie with the crowd in the background.

Like her NYC show we saw at Knockdown Center in 2022, Arooj made the night more special by bringing out surprise guests. In 2022 it was British-Pakistani rapper Riz Ahmed and jazz great Vijay Iyer (who she released an album with in 2023), and this time it was the multitalented Cautious Clay playing flute on two songs, and Riz’s Swet Shop Boys partner, Queens-born Punjabi-Indian rapper Heems (who’s in the midst of a comeback this year with a great new album out and a second one arriving in August), also rapping on “Udhero Na” which closed the main set. Arooj said the song was written when she was a teenager, continuing with something along the lines of, “This song is no longer a plea for love. It’s a fuck you. Free Palestine!” Loud cheers followed, as they did when Arooj and band quickly returned after that for a one-song encore. 

Arooj’s magnetic voice, her insanely good band, the moody stage lighting, and the beautiful outdoor setting all made for an amazing night, and you can see more pictures by Edwina Hay below.