Nida Nusrat says no one can sing her father’s songs without permission

LAHORE: Nida Nusrat Fateh Ali, the only daughter of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who is waging a legal war against any violation of copyrights of her father’s songs and Qawalis, has warned that she will never allow and tolerate infringements of copy rights by anyone.

In an interview with The News, the young Nida, who has just come back from Canada to protect and take care of her legal right as the sole beneficiary of her father’s musical assets, has warned all the violators and usurpers of late Ustad’s music assets that she will not spare any socio-legal efforts to stop this blatant violation of the copy rights and exploitation going on for years.

In a reply to a question regarding locking horns with renowned Pakistani singer and her paternal cousin Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Nida replied: ”I have no animosity or conflict with Rahat Ali Khan, because he is not only my brother but also a part of our family as well as the custodian of the musical legacy of my loving father and I am my father’s sole heir. In fact, my best wishes and prayers are always with him.”

Nida said: “My stand is very simple. I am fighting for my right only and according that right no one can sing any of my father’s musical items without my permission including Rahat Fateh Ali Khan”. Nida said her sole contention is that people should not exploit her rights and use her father’s songs’ without her permission.

“I just want people to take permission from me and do it legally. My father was a great man who had a tremendous love for the poor and would help out the poor all his life. I am Nusrat’s daughter and would never shy away from allowing and helping any individual or organisation to use my father’s songs for charitable purposes.” However, Nida added: “Anyone desiring to do so, will have to take prior permission from me.”

In a reply to another query, Nida said she could not come on the front since she was too young with a lot of responsibilities after her father’s death while having a single parent who was suffering from cancer and also had no awareness about the music industry. But when things really got bad and people with fake identities on the

Facebook started to attack her own identity as the only living sibling of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, then she had to jump into the arena to protect her identity and her rights, she said.

Nida, telling her story about the years she and her ill mother spent after the death of her father back on August 16, 1997 in London, said: ”After my father’s death, we two, me and my mother were all alone and confused about what the fate has for us in the store. I was too young to understand the music Industry’s dynamics and take care of my father’s glowing legacy.

Mother and I shifted to Mississauga, Canada.” Nida said in Canada, she continued her studies which included music and engineering related courses. Her mother died of cancer in 2013 and the parentless Nida was all alone in the foreign land. She came to Pakistan in 2013 with her mother’s body and buried her next to her world renowned father Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in Faisalabad.

Nida said now she has come back to Pakistan again and will be staying here for another four of five months till she legally wins her rights here and then she will keep coming to Pakistan frequently.

She said her father was a very loving man and loved his family. “He was a simple man and loved homemade food. I was very fond of him and he loved me a lot too. I would listen to his songs from a secret hiding place in our home in Faisalabad when he would sing in the ‘Baitahk’ with his friends around.

He always knew about my covert listening but would never say anything. I miss my father a lot and just want the world to know that I am not doing all this for fame or material gains but to keep up the good name of my father and to protect my right as his only sibling.”