Pashto Folk Music

Pashto folk music is the traditional music of the Pashtun people of Afghanistan and north-western Pakistan, transmitted orally and centred on the singing voice. Its emblematic forms are the tappa, a short two-line verse of love and separation sung especially by women, the landay couplet, and longer narrative and devotional songs, accompanied most characteristically by the rubab lute with tabla, harmonium, dholak and flute. Radio Pakistan Peshawar and, in Afghanistan, Radio Kabul made its singers famous across the Durand Line; its best-known bearer is *Zarsanga*, honoured as the Queen of Pashtun Folklore.