Daily Times

There has never been a doubt about the musical abilities of Pakistanis, but the top 10 musicians discovered by the Bajao.Pk online music competition, Nayi Awaaz, have blown our minds.

When the competition was announced on January 28th we downloaded the Bajao Music App and started following the talent pouring in from all over Pakistan. And talent is too limiting a word for what we heard!

Bajao.pk’s Nayi Awaaz competition put the individuals through various rounds testing their abilities to write and compose songs and they created soulful and amazing music. These undiscovered underground music wonders created songs that are an ode our musically rich soil. The competition was designed to ensure equal opportunity for all where Bajao.Pk provided an efficient online platform where underground artists submitted their raw singing videos by filling in the relevant information.

“We congratulate Zaira Ali from Lahore, Usman Qayyum from Talagang, Ali Baloch from Islamabad, Ghayyas Haider from Lahore, Sameen Khawaja from Quetta, Ayesha Nasir Khan from Kashmir, Noman Al Sheikh from Karachi, Ahmer Khan from Rawalakot, Danish Butt from Islamabad and Mudabbir Khan from Lahore on becoming the top 10 uber talented musicians. We wish them the best of luck for the final round,” said the organizer in a statement.

Umair Jaswal had hit the waves and encouraged the unheard crooners to send in their entries for amazing prizes and an opportunity to get their song produced by a leading music producer of Pakistan and the response was phenomenal with more than a 1,000 entries received. These were then short listed to 125 and uploaded to the Bajao.pk app and social media platforms for voting. They were then short listed to 25. The third round short listed the top ten and now is time for the final three winners. In this final round they have been given three new hashtags to create original songs. And we can wait to hear what amazing music they will create in this round.

The three rounds of the competition have been designed to gage the full range of music abilities of the individuals to pick the best three winners who will receive cash prizes and the top winner will also have an original song produced by Sarmag Ghafoor.

The “Nayi Awaaz” competition is hosted by Yashal Shahid, Bilal Khan, and Abdullah Qureshi, and Umair Jaswal will announce the winners at the end of the competition.

Craze for music making amongst youngsters of Pakistan is unmatchable and underground artists hardly find a suitable platform to showcase their talent. Bajao.Pk responded to this relentless passion and provided a platform for rising stars. The concept behind Bajao.Pk’s “Nayi Awaaz” initiative is to provide an online music competition platform unlike any singing/music show on Television by creating a pool of talented artists who will make the future of music industry in Pakistan. Bajao.Pk`s mission is to introduce a new voice in the music industry.

In the first round participants were free to sing a cover song of their choice. Consequently, 125 contestants were shortlisted. Their videos and profiles were shared on social media and the Bajao.Pk app and opened for voting from everyone in Pakistan. The contestants started their own campaigns on social media to get votes, and it was great to see the fun and healthy competition. After the voting lines were closed the marks were contestants were calculated and 25 top contestants were short listed for round two.

The actual thrill started from round two where the contestants were given three hashtags on which they had to create their original song in a time span of only 5 days to assess their creativity in writing lyrics and composing their own song.

The response from these talented artists was amazing. They made soulful songs for this round and their full songs were uploaded on the Bajao.Pk app under the section of round 2 where everyone from Pakistan could vote for their favourite artists once again. The selection for this round was based on 50 percent weightage of votes and 50 percent weightage of marks given by the judges. Bajao.pk is an indigenous Pakistani music service that carries over a million audio and video tracks covering all the golden hits and latest Pakistani and international songs. Users can experience all this and exciting curated playlists ad free on the go, with or without internet access.