Arooj Aftab | Aey Nehin
A Grammy winner found her favorite song on Night Reign through an Instagram video of a Pakistani actress reciting an impromptu poem about waiting for a lover who never arrived.
Story Behind “Aey Nehin”
An Instagram Poem in a Hotel Room
The opening track of Night Reign came from the most unexpected place. Arooj Aftab was in a hotel room while on tour, scrolling through Instagram in the liminal hours between soundcheck and sleep, when she stumbled upon a video that would become the foundation of her favorite song.
Pakistani actress Yasra Rizvi—a friend of Aftab’s who describes herself as a “self-proclaimed unserious poet”—had posted a clip of herself reciting an impromptu poem in Urdu. The words were simple but achingly universal: wondering why your lover hasn’t arrived yet, speculating about what might have detained them. Maybe night fell suddenly in their city. Maybe a storm delayed them. Maybe they’ll meet the rain before they meet you.
“I instantly fell in love with the playfulness and sincerity of the words,” Aftab told Consequence. “There’s a looseness, a fun, and a non-seriousness about it that actually ends up being very beautiful—it’s not contrived at all. It’s one of my favorite songs on the record.”
After the Grief, Before the Fun
Night Reign represents a deliberate pivot for Aftab. Her previous album, Vulture Prince (2021), was born from loss—dedicated to her younger brother Maher, it explored grief with devastating intimacy and earned her a Grammy for “Mohabbat,” making her the first Pakistani artist to win the award. Barack Obama put the song on his summer playlist. Suddenly, the Brooklyn-based artist who’d been quietly building a career at the intersection of jazz, minimalism, and neo-Sufi traditions found herself with mainstream expectations.
“I was really worried about this being the Vulture Prince follow-up,” she admitted to Rolling Stone. “When you have a record that people really love, you’re kind of fucked, because the next one has to be equally good or better. And that’s really scary.”
So she chased what she’d been missing: fun. Not ironic fun, not fun-as-concept, but genuine playfulness. “I want people to know that this is not just a place to park your sadness,” she said. “This is not something to just meditate to—’Oh, Arooj, it’s soooo transcendent.’ Please, that’s so boring.”
“Aey Nehin” Recording and Production Details
75 Stems of Percussion and Deafening Thunderclaps
Aftab describes “Aey Nehin” as “musically the most adventurous track on the album.” The production is a study in controlled chaos, layering multiple guitar textures, harp loops, and an extraordinary density of percussion into something that still breathes and flows.
The arrangement features Gyan Riley on nylon string guitar, with Kaki King contributing multiple layers on steel string. Harpist Maeve Gilchrist’s parts were looped and chopped into rhythmic fragments. The foundation is held by Petros Klampanis’s “driving, infectious upright bass.” And then there’s the percussion: almost 75 individual stems, building a polyrhythmic landscape that captures the restless energy of waiting for someone who might never arrive.
The track was recorded at Power Station at BerkleeNYC by Damon Whittemore, with mixing by Joshua Valleau at The Glass Wall. Mastering came from Daddy Kev (Kevin Marques Moo), known for his work across experimental and electronic scenes.
Doubling Vocals and Crazy Harmonies
Aftab doubled her own vocals throughout the track, creating “some really crazy harmonies” that give her voice an otherworldly presence. She also threw in what she calls “deafening thunderclaps” for emphasis—”to be extra about it all,” as she put it with characteristic self-awareness.
As Pitchfork noted in their review, the track grooves harder than Vulture Prince, which featured almost no drums. “Even when the rhythm instruments sit back, there’s almost always a sense of an insistent pulse,” Andy Cush wrote. “An acoustic guitar carries it, then a harp, then some hand percussion—all sharing the responsibility for keeping up momentum, tossing it back and forth, and dancing a little more freely when it’s someone else’s turn to hold it down.”
Notes About “Aey Nehin” by Arooj Aftab
Release Date: May 31, 2024
Duration: 5:44
Genre: Neo-Sufi / Folk-Jazz / Minimalism / Experimental
Album: Night Reign (4th studio album, track 1 of 9)
Lyricist: Yasra Rizvi (with Arooj Aftab)
Producer: Arooj Aftab
Label: Verve Records
Recording Location: Power Station at BerkleeNYC; The Glass Wall, NYC
Grammy Nomination: Night Reign nominated for Best Alternative Jazz Album (2025)
Arooj Aftab “Aey Nehin” Era Band Details
Album Details
Album: Night Reign
Release Date: May 31, 2024
Label: Verve Records
Producer: Arooj Aftab
Recording Studios: Power Station at BerkleeNYC; The Glass Wall, NYC
Total Length: 9 tracks, approximately 49 minutes
Format: Vinyl (including grey and black editions), CD, digital
Personnel on “Aey Nehin”
Arooj Aftab - Vocals, Production, Arrangements
Gyan Riley - Nylon String Guitar
Kaki King - Steel String Guitar
Maeve Gilchrist - Harp
Petros Klampanis - Upright Bass
Damon Whittemore - Recording Engineer
Joshua Valleau - Mixing Engineer
Daddy Kev - Mastering
Album Guest Artists (across Night Reign)
Moor Mother - Vocals (”Bolo Na”)
Vijay Iyer - Piano (”Saaqi”)
Kaki King - Guitar (multiple tracks)
Elvis Costello - Wurlitzer (”Last Night Reprise”)
Cautious Clay - (”Last Night Reprise”)
James Francies - (”Autumn Leaves”)
Chocolate Genius, Inc. (Marc Anthony Thompson) - (”Zameen”)
Joel Ross - Vibraphone
Artist Background
Born March 11, 1985 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents
Moved to Lahore, Pakistan at age 10
Self-taught guitarist who developed her style listening to Billie Holiday, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Mariah Carey, and Begum Akhtar
Attended Berklee College of Music on scholarship (graduated 2010)
Based in Brooklyn, New York since 2010
First Pakistani artist to win a Grammy (2022)
Recipient of Pakistan’s Pride of Performance Award (2022)
Interesting Facts About “Aey Nehin”
The Night as Muse
“The night is my biggest source of inspiration,” Aftab has said. The entire Night Reign album was conceived during nocturnal hours on tour—in hotel rooms, on red-eye flights, in the disorienting jet lag that blurs the line between sleeping and waking. She wrote while the world slept, letting darkness become her collaborator.
The song’s title translates roughly to “They haven’t come yet” or “They didn’t arrive,” and the poem imagines romantic explanations for the absence: perhaps night fell suddenly in their city, perhaps a storm started, perhaps they’ll meet the rain before they can meet you. It’s longing wrapped in whimsy, worry softened by imagination.
What makes the track especially significant is its position as the album opener. Where Vulture Prince began in grief, Night Reign begins in anticipation—still yearning, still waiting, but with a pulse that suggests movement forward rather than looking back.
From Lahore to Brooklyn to Everywhere
Aftab’s journey mirrors the cultural bridge her music builds. Born in Saudi Arabia, raised in Lahore during a time when access to Western platforms was severely limited, she was one of the first Pakistani musicians to use the internet to share her work in the early 2000s. Her renditions of “Hallelujah” and “Mera Pyaar” went viral through email chains, helping launch Pakistan’s indie music scene.
A Steve Vai scholarship to Berkleemusic’s online program led to formal admission to Berklee College of Music in Boston. She graduated in 2010 with a degree in music production and engineering, then moved to New York, where she edited films, scored documentaries (winning an Emmy in 2018 for Armed with Faith), and slowly built her musical practice.
Her Berklee connections run deep through Night Reign: harpist Maeve Gilchrist (BM ‘07) and percussionist Engin Kaan Gunaydin (PD ‘08) appear throughout. When Aftab performed “Raat Ki Rani” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in late 2024, both alumni were in her band.
Common Questions
Q: What does “Aey Nehin” mean in English? A: “Aey Nehin” translates approximately to “They haven’t come yet” or “They didn’t arrive.” The poem speculates on why a lover might be delayed—perhaps night fell suddenly in their city, or a rainstorm started—capturing the restless imagination of someone waiting.
Q: Who wrote the poem for “Aey Nehin”? A: The words come from Pakistani actress Yasra Rizvi, who Aftab describes as a “self-proclaimed unserious poet.” Aftab discovered the poem when she saw Rizvi reciting it on Instagram while on tour. She was immediately drawn to its playfulness and sincerity.
Q: Is “Aey Nehin” Arooj Aftab’s favorite song on the album? A: Yes. Aftab has stated in multiple interviews that “Aey Nehin” is her favorite track on Night Reign. She called it “musically the most adventurous track on the album” and praised the “looseness, fun, and non-seriousness” of its source material.
Q: What instruments are featured on “Aey Nehin”? A: The track layers nylon string guitar (Gyan Riley), steel string guitar (Kaki King), chopped harp loops (Maeve Gilchrist), upright bass (Petros Klampanis), and approximately 75 stems of percussion. Aftab also doubled her vocals and added thunderclap samples.
Q: Who is Arooj Aftab? A: Arooj Aftab is a Pakistani singer, composer, and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. Born in 1985 in Saudi Arabia and raised in Lahore, she became the first Pakistani artist to win a Grammy in 2022. Her music blends jazz, minimalism, Hindustani classical music, and neo-Sufi sounds.