Sleepy Time: Ustad Mahwash and Ensemble Kaboul with "Lalo Lalo"

Put yourself to bed with today's random tune, a lullaby by Ustad Mahwash and Ensemble Kaboul. A singer who lives in Fremont, California, Ustad Mahwash was the first female singer to have conferred on her the title of Ustad, which means master or maestra. She is known as the voice of Afghanistan and is considered one of the most beloved singers in Central Asia. It is hard to believe, but her conservative upbringing in Afghanistan almost kept her from singing as she suppressed her desire to sing. However, she was recruited to sing for Kabul Radio, and the station's director encouraged her to sing as a career. Born with the name Farida, he gave her the name Mahwash which means "like the moon." She started a rigorous regime of singing lessons where she learned to sing in a style based on North Indian classical music. She began to rise as a radio star and earned her honorific by learning and recording a complex piece written for her in a single day in 1977. However, Afghanistan was undergoing political turmoil, and not long after she was forced to leave Afghanistan. In 1991, after moving to Pakistan, she was recruited by two political factions there to sing for their cause or face assassination. She applied for political asylum in the United States, which she received that year. In the US, she reunited with other exiled musicians to form Ensemble Kaboul, and the group has performed in the United States and around the world. This song, Lalo Lalo, can be found on Disc 1 of the 2003 various artists compilation BBC 3 Radio Awards for World Music and on the 2007 Ustad Mahwash and Ensemble Kaboul album Ghazals Afghans.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahwash