Hadiqa Kiani

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Hadiqa Kiani : biography

11 August 1974 –

2002: third album Rung

Kiani released her third album Rung (Colors) in September 2002, for which she’d chosen the album title herself. Prior to Rung’s release, Kiani sang an OST for a drama called Cheray. The song also made the final listing on Rung.

The first single released from Rung was "Yaad Sajan", which was produced by Shani Haider. The song, an instant hit, propelled the album’s sales throughout September and August 2002. It was not as successful as "Dupatta" or "Boohey Barian", but it was well-liked.

While Kiani released multiple videos for her previous albums within months after the albums’ being released, she did not do so with Rung because of personal issues. Problems within Kiani’s marriage caused her to stay out of the spotlight for the rest of 2002 and early 2003. Rung’s sales slowly declined since no other single had been released after it. Kiani’s divorce was finalised in March 2003, and after that she decided to take a few months off from her musical career. As a result, Rung’s sales stalled.

She returned to promote the album in June 2003, almost 10 months after she’d released "Yaad Sajan" with a new single "Ranjhan" and several stage performances and tours around the country. She then released other singles off the album throughout 2003 and 2004. These included "Jogi Bun Kay Aa", "Mahi" and "Dholan".

The videos for Kiani’s newer singles improved drastically. In "Jogi Bun Kay Aa" Kiani plays various women’s roles, including a traditional Japanese, an Arab, and a tribal woman. She played a vampire in her video for "Mahi". The video showed that it is harmful to judge people of different faiths and castes, and also bad to stereotype. It was the highest budgeting video of the year 2003. Despite the setback from her divorce, Kiani’s album sales picked up through 2003 and 2004. In 2004, she received the Best Female Pop Singer Award by Indus Music, the first 24-hour music channel of Pakistan. Asim Raza won an award for best video for directing her video Mahi.

Rung got mixed reviews from experts. Overall it did not capitalise on the momentum generated by Roshni. Many argue that this is because Rung has more mature slow paced ballads than Roshni, while some say the turmoils of her personal life are to blame. However, Kiani still remained a strong figure in the industry. Her name was mentioned in "Pakistani Pop’s 10 most Influential Acts Ever", in which she was ranked ninth. She is also one of just 2 female singers in the list, the other being Nazia Hassan. A UK based Magazine declared Kiani the 22nd greatest music maker of South Asia out of a total of fifty artists, also mentioning how she raised the standard of music videos in the country.http://hadiqakiani.net/#

2006: single Mehr Ma

Kiani began working on a single-song project with UK based producer Khiza on his album Loyal To The Game, in 2006. The lead single Mehr Ma featured Kiani’s vocals. She also appeared in the music video directed by Sohail Jawed. The song was a massive success in Pakistan, and was seen as a great turn for Kiani after her ballads in Rung. Kiani performed the single at Lux Style Award’s and was considered the best performer of the night in reviews. The success of the single reached to a point, that it succeeded her successful single Boohey Barian in mid-2009.

2007: fourth album Rough Cut

In 2007, Kiani released her fourth studio album, Rough Cut, a collaboration with Aamir Zaki. The album had seen frequent delays in its release both due to Kiani’s busy schedule in 2005 and 2006 and because Zaki had moved to Canada while the album was being recorded. With the release of `Rough Cut’, Kiani became the first mainstream Pakistani artist to release a complete English Album. It is also her only album thus far which her website has officially put up for sale online.