Ali Saffudin
Ali Saffudin is a singer-songwriter from Hassanabad, Downtown Srinagar, Kashmir. Raised in a Shia neighbourhood where elegies on the martyrdom of Imam Hussain were a way of life, music entered him early — not as performance, but as testimony.
He studied fine arts at Delhi University before returning to Kashmir in 2014, completing a Masters in Mass Communication at Kashmir University. He has spent the years since making music that refuses to separate beauty from resistance.
His early work drew from the classical Kashmiri folk tradition — reworking ballads by 16th-century poetess Habba Khatoon into pop without losing their original soul. But his range runs wider: punk, grunge, heavy metal, folk, and rock all surface in his writing, which moves fluidly between Kashmiri and Urdu, between grief and defiance.
In 2022, he released Wolivo on Azadi Records — a 10-track debut album that tells the story of a boy whose heartland is torn apart by conflict. It is an act of catharsis, condemnation, and reformation. In 2026, he returns with IRTIQA — four tracks, one question: how high can you rise?