“I hope you fall in love, I hope it breaks your heart” is the refrain (in English translation) of “Pasoori,” Ali Sethi’s 2022 global hit. The song, performed as a duet with the Pakistani singer Shae Gill, defies such simple classifications — it’s a pop banger sung in Urdu and Punjabi, punctuated with flamenco handclaps and driven by a reggaeton beat. It’s now been viewed some 850 million times on YouTube, including by countless Indian fans. Sethi, 39, is a master of microtonal singing, gliding between the notes of the Western tempered scale. In 2009, he published “The Wish Maker,” a semiautobiographical coming-of-age novel set in his home city.

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Persons: ” Ali, Shae Gill, Sethi, —, ” Sethi, It’s, He’s, Ustad Saami, Farida Khanum, “, ”, Jane Austen, Zadie Smith, Indiana Jones, Mariah Carey, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Organizations: Pakistani, YouTube, Harvard Locations: Pakistani, Manhattan’s East, Lahore