“If your love is poison, I will drink it fully,” pulses the hook of Ali Sethi’s 2022 hit “Pasoori”, an ode to forbidden desire that blends the sounds of raga, reggaeton and the Turkish bağlama. The Punjabi-language duet, sung with Shae Gill, is Pakistan’s biggest cultural export in decades, reaching more than a billion listeners, mostly across the Radcliffe line in India.
Sethi, 41, has performed “Pasoori” at rallies for New York mayor (and one-time collaborator) Zohran Mamdani, at Coachella and concerts and festivals in the US, UK and the Gulf.
But India, home to most of Sethi’s fan base, wants its citizens on a detox. The singer’s dulcet voice serenades India’s weddings, cricket matches and school rallies — yet he, like all Pakistani artists, is banned from touring there. Since a May 2025 skirmish between India and Pakistan, Ali has faced blocks on Instagram and Spotify in India (they have since been lifted, but the threat of further censorship looms).