Amidst scenes of laughing Pakhtun children playing with worn out tyres at an internally displaced peoples’ camp in northwest Pakistan walks a young man named Naseer Afridi, singing of peace and love:

“If you hit me with stones, place a gun to my head, I’ll greet you with a flower in return. I am Pakhtun.”

So touching are the resilient smiles of the displaced Pakhtun children in Naseer's music video that an American woman sitting halfway across the world contacted him about how his song Za Pukhtoon Yam (I am Pakhtun) gave her peace. She thanked him profusely for pushing her to learn about a people of whom she was previously unaware.

When Naseer began his music career, he didn’t predict that the lyrics he wrote in his bedroom in Islamabad would impact someone so geographically and culturally distant from him. He was simply frustrated by the lack of experimentation in the Pashto music industry and decided to rebel against its stagnant state.

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His ambition of revitalising Pashto music led him, in partnership with Shahab Qamar as the guitarist, to form the first Pashto rock band in 2010, 'Naseer and Shahab'.

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