Salman Khan Niazi and Zaman Khan, the sibling duo known as Salman-Zaman, have carved a distinct space in India’s independent music scene by weaving together Hindustani classical roots, Sufi poetry, and contemporary rock textures. Emerging from the Rampur-Sahaswan gharana lineage, the brothers have steadily evolved from their early indie rock identity as Astitva to a more expansive, genre-blending sound, with popular works like Jhoom Jhoom, Dil Banjara, and Le Chalo (from Taaza Khabar) reflecting their evolving musical palette. As they prepare to perform at the NMACC, Mumbai, they speak about heritage, reinvention, and the changing language of independent music in a streaming-driven world. Excerpts from an interview with the duo: You’ve built your identity around reinterpreting Sufi and qawwali classics; where do you draw the line between revival and commodification of a spiritual tradition for digital audiences? We’ve been in this industry for more than a decade, and we’ve seen how people are now prioritising the classic vintage form of art over the commercial sound. That’s the reason we chose to go back to our roots of Hindustani classical and blend the traditional Sufi kalams with a pinch of new age sound, keeping the authenticity of the genre and songs as pure as possible. After years with Astitva and now as Salman–Zaman, what fundamentally changed – was the shift artistic, or was it a strategic rebranding to survive a streaming-first industry? Astitva was and will always be a very special part of us! We’ve written and composed crazy independent hits like “Dil Banjara”, “Gumshuda” ,Tu Hi Bata” and many more, that alternative Hindi rock sound still resonates in our hearts. Having said that, shifting to a genre like Sufi was purely for the love of exploring more of Hindustani Classical music and taking our inherited legacy of classical music forward, which we couldn’t have done being just a Hindi rock band. Your journey, from performing in small Delhi venues to composing for OTT platforms, mirrors the “indie-to-mainstream” pipeline. Do you see this as growth, or does mainstream exposure dilute the rawness that first defined your music? Every artist starts small and so did we. But every artist aims to be seen and heard to a wider audience someday. OTT platforms are the mainstream today it has helped a lot of independent artists because the OTT platforms actually hunt for raw and original music, so if you’re giving music for such platforms then you’re very much intact to your originality. The essence of music gets lost when you’re composing music to meet the deadlines and we refrain from getting into such situations. In an era of viral reels and short attention spans, your format (The Salman–Zaman Show) leans into longer, immersive performances, are you resisting the algorithm, or ultimately adapting to it in a different disguise? Honestly, we didn’t analyse any sort of algorithms, as we’re musicians and not content creators focusing upon the viral trends. In the world of short videos and reels everyone wants to hit that “60 seconds of fame” but we still believe in giving our audience a playlist, a set of songs that they can listen to and relate to. That’s the reason we’re giving a different set of songs in our musical series “The Salman-Zaman Show” a series where we’re releasing a compilation of 11 songs that has originals and renditions. We’re super excited to perform them all live for the first time in Mumbai at NMACC tomorrow, on April19.
