ZiNdagi by Taqi Khan

This album was recorded through the Visible Music Mentoring Program, as part of Multicultural Arts Victoria’s Emerge initiative. The program has been generously supported by Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Victoria and the Scanlon Foundation

My name is Taqi Khan and I am from Afghanistan. I belong to the persecuted Hazara ethnic group, who have resided in today’s Afghanistan for over 2000 years. Hazaras have faced genocides and mass killings since the late 1800s for their ethnicity, with 62% of Hazaras killed by the King of Afghanistan. Due to this ongoing persecution, injustices and violence against us, many of us have had to flee our homeland and become refugees. I am one of the Hazaras who left the country during persecution, and have spent most of my life as refugee – full of suffering and hopelessness. In 2010 I came to Australia by boat and was detained in a detention centre. I am now living in Melbourne, studying and working on my music. Music is how I make people from my own community, and wider communities, happy and cheerful – something I have been deprived of all throughout life. I share my pain through my music. I tell the silenced stories of my people’s painful history to the world with my music.

www.facebook.com/taqikhanmusic

Thanks….
I would like to thank Multicultural Arts Victoria and Jess Fairfax for their support in Australia. I wish to convey special thanks to our great poets Tahir Hijran, Nasir Nadir and Aziz Fayaz for their beautiful lyrics. Thanks also to Ali Sarshar for recording and mixing the album.