Hangama

Afghan singer

هنگامه Hangama
Birth name	Zuhra (زهره)
Born	1960 (age 63–64) Kabul, Afghanistan
Genres	Pop Classical Music Ghazals
Occupation(s)	Singer
Years active	1975–present

Musical artist

Hangama (Dari/Pashto: هنگامه) is an Afghan singer who has been active since the 1970s. Besides Afghanistan, she is also known in Tajikistan and Iran.^[1] Before her emigration from Afghanistan in the 1980s, she was regarded as one of the most popular female singers of the country.

Life and career

Originally born as Zuhra, her mother chose the name of Hangama for her when she became a singer. Raised in a music-loving family, she started her music career in 1975 at only 15 years old. She was a music student of the acclaimed Ustad Nainawaz.

In the 1980s she emerged with Ahmad Wali as a very popular musical duo and later became the unrivaled singer-couple in the mid-1980s. The duo recorded their first few songs in Afghanistan with the accompanying videos becoming immensely popular. Their songs remain classics of the Afghan musical archives.

After leaving Afghanistan for Germany in 1985, Hangama and Wali got married. She gave birth to a son named Massieh in 1986.

Hangama won the ATN Award as a Best Female singer on November 29, 2008 and she was also nominated for best female singer on Noor TV awards in April 2008 however she was outcompeted by the Afghan singer Naghma who instead won the award.

Concerts

After leaving Germany, she has been having lots of concerts alone and with singers like Najim Nawabi, Nasrat Parsa, Leila Forouhar, Naim Popal, Freshta Samah, Haider Salim, Walid Soroor and Waheed Soroor.

In 2005, Hangama returned to Afghanistan for a round of concerts in Mazar Sharif and Kabul. Reportedly she was applauded for her contribution to the music of Afghanistan over the years. Since then she has been having concerts and TV shows at least once a year in different TV stations in Kabul.