Still basking in her historic Grammy win, the Brooklyn-based Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab has added another feather to her cap with a debut at the much talked Coachella music festival. She stunned the California desert with a compilation centred on her melodious Urdu lyricism, becoming a barrier-breaking move as she became the first Pakistani to play at the prestigious festival. For Aftab, the language barrier no longer exists: “This is a door that’s opened.” The 37-year-old who just released a cover of Spanish flamenco revisionist Rosalia’s Di mi nombre sees a revolution in popular music, with artists sailing freely past genre and borders. “There’s a movement happening in the music industry at large,” she told AFP on the grounds of Coachella, where she delivered a moving performance of her work that fuses ancient Sufi traditions with inflexions of folk, jazz and minimalism.