Arooj Aftab review: Grammy winner loved by Barack Obama plays Project House in Leeds

“Turn the lights off,” she commands as she returns to the stage for an encore of ‘Mohabbat’, a track that featured on Barack Obama's 2021 summer playlist. The impression dissolves as she dryly pleads, “Hide me!”

The Pakistani-American singer has done much to avoid the spotlight over the last hour. Her sunglasses and leather jacket speak of ineffable indie cool but for much of the set she’s cast in hazy shadow due to the lack of front lighting.

This creates a midnight mood that emulates the ten tracks she plays, which are drawn from 2021’s Grammy-winning Vulture Prince (“sad and mellow”) and this year’s Night Reign (“flirty and stupid”).

These are tracks that seamlessly meld genres within an overarching framework of dreamlike jazz. The three “bad muthaf*****s” she shares the stage with each add their own background.

Gyan Riley (son of minimalist composer Terry Riley) earns rounds of applause for his virtuosic classical guitar solos. Petros Klampanis’ double bass is by turns plucked and bowed, being reverb heavy on the grungy ‘Bolo Na’, and Dorian Donovan Thomas offers folk style violin to ‘Suroor’.

Aftab’s effortless vocals, which switch between Urdu and English, bridge these styles with a Sade-like calm. She hymns drinking with a friend one moment (‘Whiskey’) – the show punctuated by promises of shots being handed out to the audience - and sets the poetry of 18th-century Urdu writer Mah Laqa Bai Chanda to music the next (‘Na Gul’).

The flawless collision of genres draws on her experience as a New Yorker via Riyadh, Lahore, and the Berklee College of Music. Yet while it dissolves musical borders, she remains acutely aware of other barriers that need dismantling. She jokes that her merchandise rather disconcertingly features her ‘googly eyes’ at breast level.

The laughter becomes more uncomfortable when she decries the continued exoticism of the eyes of South Asian women.

Her barbed, witty banter provides a sharp contrast with the gentle sensuality of tracks such as ‘Raat Ki Rani’ and ‘Diya Hai’.

Their rapturous response nonetheless suggests that, despite her protestations, she won’t be able to avoid the spotlight for much longer.