Hangama (

Dari Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī � ...

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages ...

: ) is an

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

singer who has been active since the 1970s. Besides Afghanistan, she is also known in

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

and

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. Before her

emigration Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

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 Fazel Ahmad Zekrya (Pashto/Dari: ; 1935–1979), known professionally as Nainawaz (Pashto/Dari: ) (or Ustad Nainawaz) was a renowned Afghan artist, poet and composer. He has composed some of the most iconic pieces in Afghan popular music. Backg ...

. 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, and the couple additionally sang a song for the Sarandoy gendarmerie of the

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA),, renamed the Republic of Afghanistan, in 1987, was the Afghan state during the one-party rule of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) from 1978 to 1992. The PDPA came to power ...

alongside other gendarmes. Their songs remain

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

of the Afghan musical

archives An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

. After leaving

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

for

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

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 , official_name = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , pushpin_map = Afghanistan#Bactria#West Asia , pushpin_label = Mazar-i-Sharif , pushpin ...

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.

References

External links

* Hangama's Official Website: http://hangama.info
Hangama Videos
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hangama 1960 births Living people Afghan singers Afghan musicians People from Kabul Afghan Tajik people Persian-language singers Afghan emigrants to Canada Afghan expatriates in Canada 20th-century Afghan women singers 21st-century Afghan women singers