There is a difference between being visible and being known. Aima Baig has spent more than a decade in the first condition: heard through film soundtracks, Coke Studio, stadium anthems and arena speakers; watched just as closely through the distortions of fame. Now, at 31, she seems less interested in negotiating with the version of herself assembled by other people, and more willing to let her own voice carry the full story.
Shot in London amid a demanding schedule and a new collaboration with Bilal Saeed, this digital cover finds her at an unusually candid threshold. The city became, in her telling, both refuge and reset: a place to step away from performance in its public sense and rediscover it on her own terms. She speaks openly about people-pleasing, privacy, the spectacle of online judgement and the relief of no longer answering every allegation. Her defiance is sharp, but it is not careless; beneath it sits a hard-won self-awareness and the gentler conviction that putting herself first is not the same as shutting others out.
“I feel as though I have just started living. For the first time, I am allowing myself to enjoy my stardom without asking what everybody else will think.”
That interior shift runs through Guriya, her first album after more than a decade in music. Named for her late mother, the record turns grief, memory and love into something meant for millions without surrendering what remains private. In the conversation that follows, Aima recalls the exact corner of a bed her mother once occupied, the scent of a dupatta capable of collapsing time, the achievements that felt incomplete without her, and the songs she has paused because sharing them still asks too much. This is not an attempt to correct every headline. It is something more intimate, and more assured: an artist deciding which parts of her life deserve her own language, and finally allowing herself to be heard in full.
Q: You’re on our cover this month, shot in the middle of a pretty packed London schedule. Before we get into everything, how has this trip felt for you? Is there a version of Aima that only comes out when you’re shooting somewhere new like this?
A: I have a terrible memory, but I remember my first-ever magazine cover in extraordinary detail because it was with HELLO! Pakistan. Returning to the cover always gives me a sense of nostalgia. I remember how young I was, the atmosphere on set and even the way I asked the makeup artist to style my hair. My mother had the most beautiful sense of style, and I wanted a look inspired by the way she used to wear her hair. The artist understood it perfectly. Those details have stayed with me, so being here again feels very special.
This trip itself was different. I have been to London and the wider UK many times, and we have an incredible audience there, but this time I was more open to meeting new people and being surprised by how talented and interesting they could be. I spent most of my time with Rao, who is honestly some of the best company anyone could ask for, so there was a great deal of laughter too.
“This version of Aima is completely in love with herself. That is not narcissism; it is self-awareness.”
More importantly, London became the detox I needed. I needed distance from the drama that can surround the glamour, from sadness, depression and even the writer’s block I had been carrying. Somewhere during this trip, all of that began to lift. For the first time in a long while, I felt as though I was there entirely for myself, not to please anybody else. I have been a people-pleaser for much of my life. As public figures, we learn to develop a thick skin because people feel entitled to say almost anything about us, but in London I finally felt able to lower my guard and simply be. I lived every moment and cherished it.
As for another version of me emerging when I work: absolutely. I have always had an alter ego, and music brings her out more than anything else. Singing, fashion and anything artistic draw out what I believe is the happiest and most compelling part of me. If the everyday Aima and that working version of Aima were placed in the same room, even I would want to live her life. She is energised, optimistic and fully immersed in what she loves.
“People have watched me grow up, but watching someone’s life is not the same as understanding it.”
The schedule was extremely tight, but this cover remained a priority because the things I genuinely love doing always rise to the top of my list. I have started enjoying that creative alter ego more than my supposedly regular life, which is barely regular anyway. When I am in the zone, working or surrounded by people whose company I love, I forget the sadness in the world. That Aima is so happy and hopeful that she inspires me. In many ways, I draw strength from her.
Q: You’re currently in London shooting a new project with Bilal Saeed, and clips from Soho have already gone viral before the song is even out. Does it ever feel strange that the world reacts to the behind-the-scenes as much as the final product?
A: It does. It can be frustrating because what happens away from the camera is often private and personal. I am fully aware that I am not living an anonymous life, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest, but public visibility should not erase a person’s right to spend time with friends without being secretly filmed.
An older, less content version of me would probably have reacted immediately to the videos and the allegations built around them. This time, I laughed. So many people sent me the clip and tagged me that I was reminded why I had disabled my tagging option in the first place. What surprised me was how little of the conversation focused on the actual breach: someone chose to invade another person’s private moment, whether that person was a man or a woman, and then placed it online with a particular intention.
“Guriya is full of character. For the first time, that character is entirely me.”
There were comments about how we represent Pakistan, but whenever we are called upon to represent our country, we do it with enormous love and care, through music, drama, sport and every other field. This was not an official appearance. We had been working all day and stepped out afterwards to get coffee with friends. The people filming us did not know what had happened before or after the few seconds they captured.
Ironically, the entire episode became an extraordinary promotional campaign for a song we had not even finished shooting. We still had another day left in a three-day schedule, and suddenly the project was trending and being discussed internationally. I could not have devised a more effective strategy myself; people may genuinely have saved us a considerable marketing budget.
The song is beautiful, and it is also my answer to many people who have asked about my personal life. I have previously tried to explain myself through long written statements, and perhaps those words were not always delivered or received in the way I intended. This time, I know that music is the right language. As a singer and writer, I can tell people what happened, what I was living through and where I stand now far more honestly in a song than in a paragraph on social media.
Bilal is an exceptional artist and a wonderful person to work with. I only felt sorry for our friend Anna, who sent me a joking voice note to complain that she had been there too and nobody was talking about her. In reality, there was an entire group of us, but the internet selected the version of the story it wanted.
“If I could trade every good thing written in my fate to have my mother here, I would.”
So yes, the intrusion itself was wrong, but I am choosing to see what came from it. Whether people love us, criticise us or simply want to know what happened in London, many of them will now click on the video. I did not feel the need to post a defensive explanation about what I was drinking or what people thought they saw. They are free to believe what they choose. I know what we have made, and I believe people are going to love it.
Q: These images capture you moving through the city with a certain ease, as if you are no longer asking for permission to take up space. If this chapter of Aima Baig had a title, what would it be?
A: That is an extremely perceptive question to ask someone in the middle of a transition. I was missing in action for a while because I genuinely needed a detox. You could call it a break from the glamour, although the drama in my personal life did not take a break with it. For once, I wanted to live for myself.
I have spent much of my life pleasing other people, and I am proud to say that I no longer do that in the same way. Acceptance and the ability not to be controlled by every opinion is a skill. I was not naturally blessed with it, but I have worked hard to learn it. I have nothing to hide now and no interest in constructing a false version of myself. The truth has a way of emerging regardless, and I would rather live honestly than exhaust myself trying to manage every interpretation.
When those images appeared, part of me actually felt relieved. People were finally seeing a version of me that was not designed to impress them. I dressed for myself. Fashion has always been one of the ways I express who I am, but the society and culture we live in inevitably shape what can be worn comfortably in different spaces. I respect that. Jaisa des, waisa bhes, you adapt to where you are. I had been living in London for around two months and travelling through Wales, Manchester and other parts of the UK. I was dressing like someone inhabiting that life, not someone trying to perform an identity for a camera.
“Sometimes I find one of Amma’s dupattas and smell it because I want even one trace of her. A scent can return you to someone’s presence in a second.”
I am glad people could see that I was not suddenly trying to become somebody else; that side of me had always existed. At 31, I am finally accepting qualities I once suppressed because I thought I had to appear perfectly proper or conform to what society expected a woman like me to look and sound like. I no longer want to spend my energy maintaining that image. I care about matters that have consequences: young people using drugs, narrow-mindedness, racism, poverty and the conversations capable of creating real change.
I have never been more content in my body or, more importantly, in my mind. I feel free, and I believe I have earned that feeling. Eleven years in this industry have brought painful periods as well as extraordinary ones. Alhamdulillah, Allah has been immensely gracious to me, and when I meet people in real life, what they give me is love. I no longer read every comment. If something genuinely makes me laugh, I may respond, but I refuse to let social media define the life I am actually living.
This version of Aima is completely in love with herself. That is not narcissism; it is self-awareness. She knows what is worth loving, and she has finally learned to put herself first.
If I had to give this chapter a title, it would be: I Have Just Started Living. For the first time, I feel as though I am allowing myself to enjoy my stardom and live the life of a rock star without asking what everybody else will think.
Q: Your album, Guriya, carries the name your late mother was lovingly known by. How do you turn something so intimate into music for millions without losing the part that belongs only to you?
A: This question made me emotional. It is the kind of question that reminds me what thoughtful journalism can do. I do not think anyone has asked me about the album in quite that way before and it deserves a much longer conversation than this.
My mother, my Ammaji, was called Guriya, and I still run out of words when I try to speak about her. Grief keeps changing as your life changes. As I grow older, I understand more acutely how much I needed her, and I miss her every day. Coping with that absence can be frustrating and deeply painful.
The process of making this album has been brutal, beautiful and full of tears. At one point, I sat on the corner of the bed where she used to sit. I leaned back and stretched out my legs exactly as she would, picturing her with a book in her hands or watching a frightening film, she loved the horror genre, which was one of her wonderfully darker quirks. Sometimes I am simply going through ordinary belongings and find one of Amma’s dupattas. Of course I smell it, because I want even one trace of her. A scent can take only a second to return you to someone’s presence. That experience is almost beyond this world.
Many remarkable fellow artists have helped me through the making of Guriya, including Atif Aslam, Asim Azhar, Qasim Hasan, Raheel and Mubashir, among others. An album is never a one-person show, even when it is anchored in one person’s most private journey. So many hands help shape the music, but the emotional truth still rests with the person trying to translate that relationship.
If I could trade every good thing written in my fate to have my mother here, I would. I would have traded almost anything, even my own life, for hers. Allah gave me so much, Alhamdulillah, but a part of me still believes life would have been better if she had been here to witness it. She did not see the extraordinary highs or the devastating lows: the Tamgha-e-Fakhre-Imtiaz, performing before presidents and prime ministers, Wembley, the Royal Albert Hall and so many stages I once could not have imagined. Whenever an opportunity of that scale arrived, my first thought was always, “I need my mother for this.”
There were songs we stopped working on because the emotion became too much. There are parts of that relationship and of my grief that I still do not feel comfortable sharing. When I reach that boundary, I stop. We put one memory down and approach another. That is how I keep something for myself. Turning an intimate experience into art does not require handing over every private detail.
There is a track on the album also called “Guriya”. You can hear me sniffing on the recording because I began to cry. We kept that moment because it belongs to the truth of the song.
That vulnerability is also why the release date has moved more than once. I know it has been confusing, and I have felt embarrassed after announcing dates and then hesitating, but something stops me each time: I ask myself once more whether I am truly ready to share this part of my life with the world. I now believe I am. I will not offer another date until I am certain; perhaps one day the album itself will simply arrive. It is not far away.
“The biggest misconception is that the chaos people witnessed is who I am. They know the controversy; they do not necessarily know me.”
Q: Audiences have known your voice through film soundtracks, Coke Studio, collaborations and stadium anthems. With Guriya, what are we finally going to learn about Aima when no character, campaign or collaborator is speaking alongside her?
A: I would slightly challenge the idea that there is no character in this album. Guriya is full of character; for the first time, that character is entirely me.
People have watched me grow up. I began working on Mazaaq Raat when I was around 17 or 18, so much of my adolescence and adulthood unfolded in public. They saw the physical changes, hormonal shifts, breakdowns, successes and failures. Sometimes I wonder how people can have witnessed so much and still feel that they have never really seen me. Perhaps that is the difference between watching a life and understanding it.
For more than a decade, I sang for films, dramas, major platforms, brands, campaigns, teams and organisations. I am profoundly grateful for every one of those opportunities and for the people who trusted me with them. They built my career and taught me an enormous amount. But this album is not selling a car, a phone or a sporting event. It is not asking me to inhabit somebody else’s story. It is me, standing on my own and telling mine.
Growing up under pressure, travel and an intense level of fame also meant missing ordinary experiences. While other women my age celebrated birthdays and milestones together, I was often watching from somewhere else because I was travelling or working. That is not a complaint; it is simply the life I was living. Eventually, I became tired in a way that made my soul feel older than my age.
At 31, I am mentally in my prime, but I also carry a calmness I did not have before. I used to be terribly impatient. Now there is more peace, perspective and patience in me. I can see that working on myself, within myself and for myself has changed the world around me without my having to force it.
So what will people learn? They will hear a fuller Aima: not a spokesperson, not a playback voice and not one half of a collaboration, but a woman shaped by everything she has lived through. Of course, any artist has to remain prepared for a response different from the one she hopes for, but I am not releasing Guriya simply to meet an expectation. I am making it for myself and for the love of my life, who was, is and always will be my mother. If people recognise themselves in it, that will be an extraordinary gift.
“I can be honest without making everything available. I never promised to hand over every part of my private life.”
Q: You have described this as your first album after more than a decade in music. Why did it take this version of you to create a complete body of work, and what did you have to unlearn before you could make it?
A: The simplest answer is that I started very young and then I never stopped moving. I was 16, 17, 18, still discovering who I was, when work began taking over my life. I was fortunate enough to receive one opportunity after another, and much of the following decade disappeared into tours, flights, studios and stages. At one point, I travelled so constantly that I almost forgot where I lived.
In that movement, I became disconnected from my own inner music. I was busy delivering work for other people, worrying about how I presented myself and whether anyone would question my ability. Alhamdulillah, people have watched that ability develop, but they have also watched me go through intensely difficult and sometimes very public periods. I may even qualify as one of Pakistan’s most controversial female artists, sometimes for understandable reasons and sometimes for reasons I still cannot explain. People have always wanted to talk about me, and I have learned to be grateful that they remain interested.
Behind that noise, however, I was absent from myself. Brands, organisations, tours and commercial projects filled the calendar. Then certain events in my personal life made me question what I was doing and even what my life meant. Personal pain inevitably touches professional life, although I became very skilled at continuing to work through it.
It took a little more than a decade for me to become ready to release something this raw. With Guriya, there is no character to hide behind and no brief telling me what the song needs to accomplish. If someone becomes a fan through this album, they will be responding to the most honest version of me. I want that relationship with my listeners to feel like family and a real support system. I want somebody to hear a song and say, “This happened to me too. I know exactly what she means.”
As for unlearning, I would reframe that part of the question. I had far more to learn than to unlearn. I had to learn who I was when the work stopped, how to recognise my own emotions, how to protect what is private, how to be patient with myself and how to place my own needs on the list. Those lessons brought me to the contentment I have now, and that version of me could finally make this album.
“The world has not yet seen the full extent of the performer in me. That is the side of Aima I am still preparing to reveal.”
Q: “Dunya Bhula Ke” is intimate and acoustic, while “Khelenge Beat Pe” was created for the scale of a stadium. Which version of yourself feels more exposed: the woman singing softly into someone’s headphones or the performer commanding thousands of people?
A: My answer may be surprising: the performer still feels more exposed, because I do not think the world has seen the full extent of that side of me yet.
People already know me as a melodic singer. They have heard that part of my voice across OSTs, film songs, my own releases and Coke Studio. The quieter, emotionally detailed side of my singing has had many opportunities to reach them. What they have only seen in fragments is the performer with all her power, movement and energy.
There is much more I do in real life and onstage than I have previously felt able to show, partly because of the society in which we live and the scrutiny placed on female performers. I no longer want that fear to dictate the size of my performance. People will say what they choose regardless.
The new single we shot in London brings together the Aima people remember and the Aima who exists now. It gives a glimpse of where the performer in me is going. So yes, the woman at the microphone may sound more intimate, but the artist commanding the stage is the one I am still preparing to reveal more fully.
Q: This was your fourth PSL anthem, and once again you shared the track with Atif Aslam. At this point, do you walk into a stadium performance feeling pressure, ownership or simply the thrill of knowing that the crowd is waiting for your voice?
A: I have been fortunate enough to work with so many of the artists I admired, and I could not be more grateful for that. Working with Atif is always a pleasure; he is an extraordinary artist.
No artist simply walks onto a stage as though it is an ordinary set of stairs. The feeling arrives during the walk towards it, whether that walk lasts three minutes or only a few seconds. You know that the next moment will have an impact, and everything depends on how fully you can gather yourself and inhabit it.
Experience and practice change the pressure. Khelenge Beat Pe was the anthem for PSL 11 and my fourth official PSL anthem, so I am no longer overwhelmed in the way I might once have been. But the scale of a stadium never becomes ordinary. Knowing that thousands of people are waiting, and then feeling their love arrive at once, is difficult to describe. It makes you feel humbled. In that instant, I am acutely aware of how gracious Allah has been to me.
So the pressure is quieter now, but the thrill and the gratitude remain. It is nothing less than a blessing.
Q: Fame often encourages people to build a fixed idea of who a woman is, even while she is still changing. What is the biggest misconception about you that you have stopped trying to correct?
A: I have been a deeply misunderstood woman for much of my public life. People often became interested in the parts of my story that were chaotic and then treated those moments as though they explained my entire character. They know the controversy; they do not necessarily know me.
What I value is that, regardless of the image they may have formed, listeners have continued to meet me through the music. They have shown up for the songs and I respect and love them for that.
The biggest misconception is perhaps that the chaos people witnessed is who I am. I no longer feel compelled to correct it. I am content with where I stand and with the way I now understand life. Life is far larger than a social-media narrative, and the matters that once seemed enormous to me now feel very small. I would rather use my energy on what is real than spend it persuading strangers to revise an idea they were determined to build.
“This album is not my rebuttal to the noise. It is my story, offered on my own terms.”
Q: You have lived through moments when the public conversation became louder than your music. Has that made you more guarded, or has it made you braver about deciding which parts of your story deserve your own voice?
A: Both, but in healthier proportions. Experience has taught me that a person should retain some awareness even when she lowers her guard. You should allow yourself to trust and to live peacefully, but not abandon every boundary.
At the same time, I have become much braver, and I like discovering that strength in myself. I know I can speak when something genuinely deserves my voice, and I no longer allow the fear of what people may think to control every decision.
My responsibility to the audience is the music. I want them to enjoy it, feel something and perhaps find happiness in it. I never promised to hand over every part of my private life. When I was younger, I was naïve enough to share more than I had the emotional capacity to carry once it became public. That was part of growing up under scrutiny. Now, I am more deliberate. I can be honest without making everything available.
Q: Your tattoos preserve different fragments of your life. If this exact period became a new tattoo, what image, lyric or symbol would represent it?
A: I have to be honest: most of my tattoos do not carry profound meanings. I often treat them as permanent accessories. I love jewellery and anything that adds character to the body or to a person’s visual identity, and tattoos are part of that instinct for me.
There may be one with a more personal significance, but generally I chose each tattoo because I liked it in that particular moment and thought it looked right on me. I am more interested in the act of adornment than in forcing symbolism onto every mark.
So if this period became a tattoo, I probably would not choose a grand statement or an obvious emblem. I would choose something that felt visually right to me now, something I wanted entirely for myself and allow the memory of this chapter to become its meaning over time.
Q: You have already achieved the kind of mainstream recognition many artists spend their careers pursuing. What excites you now that success alone is no longer an interesting enough goal?
A: Recognition by itself no longer interests me in the way it once might have. I think many people pass through a phase in which being noticed feels important; some admit it and others prefer not to. I understand both.
What matters to me now is being recognised for the right reasons: the music, the skill, the writing or a performance that genuinely moved someone. I am not looking for attention simply for the sake of remaining visible.
The goal has become larger and harder to measure. I want to take the work itself to another level. When you enter music deeply enough, it carries you beyond the ordinary idea of achievement. You begin to encounter another kind of beauty, spirit and soul, something language cannot quite contain. That depth excites me far more than adding another conventional marker of success.
Q: A decade in, is there a piece of advice you got early in your career that you’d now tell a younger artist to ignore completely?
A: I would tell them to free themselves from the fear of missing out. When you grow up under a spotlight at a very young age, you begin to believe you must be everywhere. You worry that one missed appearance, opportunity or conversation will leave you behind. It will not. Trying to occupy every room only drains the energy you could have invested in something meaningful and productive.
Protect your time. Put that energy into the work and into becoming better at what only you can do.
I would also tell younger artists to trust the direction they are already taking. There is so much talent emerging, and many of them are remarkably aware of who they are. I respect that. I am genuinely excited to see more because the work keeps getting better.
Q: When listeners reach the final song on Guriya, what do you hope they understand about you that they could never have learned from the headlines?
A: A headline can never teach you who a person is. Neither can a post or a story assembled by somebody standing outside that life. Fame sometimes happens because the work reaches people, but it comes at a substantial personal price. Being reduced to public fragments is part of that price.
With Guriya, I am sharing my life in my own language for the first time in a very long while. It is so personal that I did not create it to correct a narrative or force anyone to think differently about me. I care deeply about whether listeners connect with it and whether they hear something of themselves in the songs, but I cannot make their interpretation the reason the album exists.
If they understand anything by the final track, I hope it is that a human being is always more complicated, more sensitive and more complete than the version captured in a headline. This album is not my rebuttal to the noise. It is my story, offered on my own terms.
RAPID FIRE
The Aima Baig song that deserved more love?
Baanware” from Coke Studio. It was part of my debut season, and the people who love it are truly devoted to it. I still think it is underrated.
One song by another artist you wish were yours?
Faasle” by Kaavish and Quratulain Balouch. I was originally going to perform it on Coke Studio but chose “Baanware” instead. They did an extraordinary job, nobody could have done it better but a part of me still wishes I had sung it.
A genre people would never expect you to record?
Ideally, people should not expect anything from me. I want to remain unpredictable. I have even sung in character for an animated film, so I am open to almost anything.
Studio at midnight or stage under stadium lights?
A stage under stadium lights. The feeling is almost extraterrestrial; nothing compares with those goosebumps. A midnight studio has its own bohemian calm, though, and I love that too.
A voice note, a handwritten letter or a perfectly curated playlist?
A perfectly curated playlist. That matters to me.
One artist, Pakistani or international, you would call for your dream collaboration?
Alhamdulillah, I have been fortunate enough to collaborate with nearly every Pakistani artist I once hoped to work with. Internationally, there are too many to name, but I would love to work with a rapper or hip-hop artist. Consider that a hint.
The lyric you are proudest of singing?
A lyric from an unreleased song I recently wrote for Guriya. It features Atif Aslam, and I am proud of what I wrote. I will reveal the title soon.
One fashion trend you would happily retire forever?
Skinny jeans, although “forever” is a dangerous word. I move back and forth between fashion eras, so you will rarely get an absolute yes or no from me.
If your current mood were a colour, what would it be?
Grey. I have grey hair right now, I love the colour, and I think I occupy that space between black and white. Consider me a grey girl.
A tattoo you could talk about for an entire evening?
Not one particular tattoo, but I could talk about tattoos as an idea all night. Mine usually mark something I liked in a moment rather than a story I need to explain forever.
Fame in three words?
Comes with a price. I know—that is four.
Complete the sentence: The Aima people know is ________, but the real Aima is ________.
The Aima people know is deeply misunderstood, but the real Aima is sensitive, empathetic, emotional and stronger than people realise.
“And I have to say, this interview and these questions were thoughtful, appropriate and genuinely meaningful. Thank you.” - Aima Baig
Interview: Sundus Unsar Raja @sublimerantr
Hair & Makeup: Laraib Mohsin @beauty.by.laraib
Photography: Jay Samuel @jaysamuelstudio
Styling & Direction: Rao Ali Khan @raoalikhan