Pakistani duo Zeb and Haniya, one of the country’s foremost up and coming all female bands, rocked the New York University Abu Dhabi campus on 21st April. Winners of the 2009 MTV Music awards for best live performers, Zeb and Haniya certainly know how to put on a show. Abu Dhabi Week was lucky enough to get a chance to chat with them while they were here and here’s what they had to say:

Is this the first time you’ve performed in the UAE?
Yes this is our first performance in the UAE. We played a short acoustic set with a new and very exciting line-up, which included Siddiq Samir on the Afghan rabab, Merlijn Twaalfhoven on viola and Douglas Caskie on percussion. This is a novel sound for us and is working very well with both our original compositions as well as our folk covers.

Your style of music borrows on a variety of cultural traditions and genres. How would you describe your music?
Since we do not consciously include or exclude any particular genre while writing our songs, it’s a little difficult to answer this question. I think all our influences are somehow reflected in our compositions and arrangements. The influences include Folk and popular music from Pakistan, film music from India, the Blues, bossanova and world music to name a few.

You sing in several languages including Pashto, Farsi, Turkish, Darri, English and Urdu. What is your favorite language to sing in?
Urdu is the language we write in and so is the language we are most comfortable using. However, every language has its own flavour and intrinsic musicality. It’s a real pleasure to experience these languages through song.

How can fans get your albums and singles here in the UAE?
We are now working on two new albums. It would be wonderful to connect with and collaborate with musicians in the Emirates for these new projects. Our album, Chup!, is available on iTunes as well as on CD Baby (cdbaby.com/zebhaniya) for anyone who is interested. You can also hear our music on our website zebandhaniya.com and on youtube.