Ustad Rashid Faridi Majid Faridi

Agha Rasheed Ahmad Fareedi (1920-1984) and Majeed Ahmed Fareedi (1931-2000) belonged to the Rajpoot Kerala gharana based in Nakodar, near Jalandhar, eastern Punjab. The gharana of traditional Qawwals and Classical musicians gave birth to some of the greatest musicians of the 20th Century, including the above-mentioned brothers, their elder brother Agha Basheer Fareedi and their cousins Hafiz Atta Muhammad and Haji Mahboob Ali Qawwal. The family patriarch was Mian Mehtab Din “Taaba” Qawwal, who was a member of his uncle Mian Muhammad Bakhsh “Baba Muhammadi” Qawwal’s party at the end of the 19th century. In the first decade of the 20th Century, Mian Mehtab Din formed his own Qawwali party, accompanied by his five sons. Young Rasheed Ahmad Fareedi began his musical career as an accompanist and later Tabla player with his grandfather’s party, having learnt tabla from his cousin, Mian Talib Hussain. After the death of Mian Mehtab Din in the late 1930s, the party was led by Agha Rasheed Ahmed’s eldest uncle Mian Din Muhammad. Agha Rasheed Ahmed kept learning Qawwali from his elders for a while, but in the late 1930s, he became a shagird of Ustad Fateh Ali Khan in order to learn classical music, spending twelve years under his tutelage. 
    By the time Agha Rasheed Ahmad Fareedi completed his musical education under Ustad Fateh Ali Khan and returned to take charge of his family Qawwali party, his elder brother Agha Bashir Ahmed and cousin Muhammad Ali Fareedi were already established names in Qawwali. After the partition of the subcontinent, Agha Rasheed Ahmed Fareedi initially moved to Peshawar and began his broadcasting career at Radio Pakistan Peshawar in 1948. He moved to Lahore in 1952 and remained there for the rest of his life. Amongst the highlights of his early career were performing for the American TV network CBS in 1956 at the Jashne Baharaan in Quetta, as well as his triumphant tour of India in 1960-61. In India, he was able to perform in Ajmer, Delhi, and Kalyar as well as at star-studded concerts in Bombay and Delhi, including a Qawwali “Muqabla” or competition against Shankar Shambhu Qawwal in front of a capacity crowd of over twenty thousand. After the death of Ustad Fateh Ali Khan in 1964, Agha Rasheed Ahmed became his designated ‘Khalifa’ or the senior-most amongst his shagirds. 
    For the next two decades, Agha Rasheed was the foremost proponent of the classical-infused style of Punjabi Qawwal. While other Qawwals bowed to the pressures of commercial interests and modern trends, Agha Rasheed maintained his status as the inheritor of his family’s Qawwali style infused with the classical teachings of his late Ustad. Politically active and obstinate in his support of performers’ rights, Agha Rasheed Fareedi was the founding member of the Artists Equity in the 1970s and headed the musicians’ branch of the trade union for the first five years of its existence. Leaving behind very few studio recordings, Agha Rasheed Ahmed’s legacy is founded on the wealth of Mehfil recordings that showcase his unique Qawwali style. With slow build-ups, his long, contemplative performances build up to stirring crescendos all the while maintaining their emotional power and classical purity. He was a favorite amongst fans of classical music as well as Sufi poetry. The list of his shagirds is very short, but most Qawwals that came after Agha Rasheed Fareedi acknowledge him as the supreme master of his craft.
    Agha Rasheed Fareedi’s younger brother Majeed Ahmad Fareedi was a singing prodigy, who didn’t formally learn music from any Ustad but possessed a magically malleable voice that was perfectly suited to Qawwali, light classical, and ghazal singing. He was an accomplished vocalist in his own right but spent most of his musical career as his elder brother’s accompanist. Majeed Ahmed Fareedi also accompanied other Qawwal parties, as well as performed solo on Radio Pakistan, with greater frequency after Agha Rasheed Ahmed’s death. He spent the last decade of his life as the darbari Qawwal of the Golra Sharif shrine in Islamabad.