hen Pakistan’s long-est-standing music group, Strings, featuring Bilal Maqsood and Faisal Kapadia as co-founders disbanded in the first quarter of 2021, they did so in an amicable fashion.

There was no bad blood between them.

Mr. Maqsood noted on more than one occasion that the friendship was intact, just not the group. Ditto for Mr. Kapadia who reiterated the sentiment.

It was an understood factor that Mr. Maqsood was going to go forward with a solo music career.

In addition to music, it showed his adoration for children and his view that content for them was lacking.

To that end, he has created children’s content by producing a puppet show called Pakkay Dost, a nursery rhyme album and a corresponding book in Urdu.

On the other hand, it was also just as obvious that Mr. Kapadia, happy with his experiences with Strings, had no other plans in mind to pursue music as a solo artist. For him, it meant traveling, exploring the world and pursuing business.

However, when he appeared in the music series Coke Studio last year with a collaborative song called ‘Phir Milenge’ with Young Stunners (Talha Anjum, Talhah Yunus), he surprised everyone and knocked it out of the park.

Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan (Xulfi), who was the curator and executive producer of the season, managed to coax him out of self-imposed exile. During the season, he was also exposed to contemporary artists from the music scene. The experience inspired him to enter the music scene, again. In addition to this, he also decided to create a record label called 29 Records. Through the label, he decided to release his own music in a trial-and-error fashion and follow it up by promoting the “exciting” generation of music that is currently making waves with the youth and has redefined pop culture.

Mr. Kapadia did so first by releasing a song called ‘Jaadu’, a feel-good electro-pop song. It has caught the attention of a demographic that is young, as well as those who followed Strings since its inception in 1988.

But not adhering to a strict framework, he confirmed that he was still going with the flow and wasn’t in any rush to make music in a hectic fashion.

“This is the beginning. I’m a firm believer in going with the flow,” he confirmed in an earlier interview. While that still holds true, soon enough, we saw Faisal Kapadia during the recent edition of the Lux Style Awards. He joined Young Stunners (Talha Anjum, Talhah Yunus) and Shae Gill and performed ‘Uss Rah Paar’ as a tribute to the late Junaid Jamshed. It was the ceremony’s opening performance, which reports suggest was one of the highlights of the LSAs.

Prior to this, he had agreed to sing a song for an upcoming Shoaib Mansoor project, even before the release of his solo song, ‘Jaadu’.

As we asked Mr. Kapadia about his agreement to do the song and what the status of its development was, he explained that it was in limbo since nothing had materialized since the first announcement. “To be honest with you, I have no idea. I know it was supposed to be released earlier but it didn’t.”

When asked about what to expect from him after the light and playful ‘Jaadu’, Mr. Kapadia confirmed another song was most certainly coming. “My next single [after ‘Jaadu’] is with Zoha Zuberi and it will be announced very soon. I’m looking forward to it,” he told Instep in a brief conversation.

It looks like Mr. Kapadia is keeping his promise by working with artists who are current but younger.

After a Lux Style performance with Young Stunners and Shae Gill, he has collaborated with another artist, who is not new, but among artists who made their debut decades after Mr. Kapadia did with Strings.

We’re glad to see both co-founders of Strings, Bilal Maqsood and Faisal Kapadia as they explore and forge new and exciting paths with original music to their credit. But it would be remiss of us to not mention that some of us still miss Strings.

However, as they say, adapt or die, and in the case of Mr. Maqsood and Mr. Kapadia, both of them have adapted to an invigorating, contemporary age of music, with each pursuing content close to his heart.

– Faisal Kapadia photo by Viktoria Mevsha