HAVI - "Andaz-e-Karam" (Cover)

Every so often, a new voice enters the SufiCore arena with enough raw power to suggest they might shake the ground. HAVI has that kind of voice: urgent, booming, commanding…I’ll even go as far as to say it’s better than Sukhvinder’s, whom he’s compared to often. On his cover of Andaz-e-Karam, the vocals soar high and cut clean, but the production chains him to the familiar gravity of SufiCore convention.

The song is locked into the same grid we’ve heard for decades: a drone-like Tanpura stretched across the mix like wallpaper, a procession of verse-chorus-verse-chorus without any attempts to restructure or reimagine. The producer Farasat Anees is competent but uninspired, polishing the track into a glossy surface without texture, a bit like the Bollywood versions of early 2000s’ Pakistani hits like Aadat, and Lamhey. The mix is safe, and designed for algorithmic playlists rather than genuine transcendence.

The most distracting choice tho, is not sonic but ethical: Anees taking writing credit. The lyrics belong to Pir Naseeruddin Naseer, who’s poetry might even predate Anees’ birth. Claiming authorship feels less like homage and more like opportunism, a small yet telling act of erasure in a song that already struggles to justify its own existence.

There’s no denying HAVI’s potential as a solo musician; his vocal delivery alone hints at an artist capable of something grander. But as long as he’s bowed into paint-by-numbers production and tethered to other people’s words, his talent risk being just another echo in the endless hall of recycled Nusrat covers.

Final Rating: 6/10

P.S. to avoid any legal hassles I’ve attached a screenshot of the song credits from the Spotify app itself.