Posts misidentify musician in old video as Indian tabla drum maestro Zakir Hussain

Published on January 10, 2025 at 07:34
3 min read
By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India

Following the death of Grammy-winning Indian musician Zakir Hussain in December 2024, an old video resurfaced online in posts that falsely claimed it showed him performing with legendary Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Both were renowned abroad outside their arch-rival countries and had previously performed together. But the circulating video actually shows another Pakistani musician -- not Hussain -- performing with Khan.

"NFAK and Zakir Hussain. Just have a look at this insanity. He was the last of legends," read the caption to the video posted on social media site X on December 15, 2024.

"NFAK" are popular initials for Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, widely considered to be one of the greatest performers of Sufi devotional music qawwali (archived link).

The 28-second video -- viewed more than 196,000 times -- shows Khan playing the harmonica and singing alongside another musician who plays the tabla, an Indian percussion instrument.

Screenshot of the false post

The footage circulated online after the death of Indian musician Zakir Hussain, a four-time Grammy winner, who died of a lung disease in the United States on December 15, 2024 (archived link).

Hussain collaborated with musicians including George Harrison from The Beatles, Mickey Hart from The Grateful Dead and jazz musician John Handy in a career spanning decades.

The video was shared with similar false claims elsewhere on X and also on Facebook.

Khan and Hussain had previously performed together, as shown in a video uploaded by the YouTube channel Artistic India (archived link).

But the musician in the circulating clip had been misidentified as Hussain.

Misidentified musician

A reverse image search on Google found a similar image of the performance published in a blog post from October 15, 2012 (archived link).

The post said the image was from a joint concert of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and fellow Pakistani musician Abdul Sattar Khan, better known as Tari Khan, in the United States.

Tari Khan is a renowned tabla drum player and vocalist from Lahore in Pakistan (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in false posts (left) and the image from the blog post (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video shared in false posts (left) and photo available on the blog post (right)

The blog post also shared a link to a YouTube video from August 6, 2011 which shows longer footage of the two artists performing (archived link).

The video was titled: "Ustad Tari Khan and Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Live Washington DC."

At the beginning of the video, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan could be seen introducing his co-performer. He points to the musician and says: "Mr. Abdul Sattar Tari, he will play with me."

The clip shared in false posts corresponds with the visuals between the 4:32 to 5:01 mark of the YouTube video.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in false posts (left) and the YouTube video (right), with similarities highlighted by AFP:

Screenshot comparison of the clip shared in false posts (left) and the YouTube Video (right) with similarities highlighted by AFP

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