For those unfamiliar with the genre, Ghazal is a traditional musical genre found across the Middle East and India, perhaps best defined as a refined fusion of poetry and music. Performed by both men and women, it's an intensely emotional and engaging style, where performers typically emphasise their sentiments through expressive hand gestures, and has become known around the world through Indian cinema.

Traditionally, Ghazal have spiritual or romantic love as their theme, often expressing the pain of loss or separation from the beloved and the beauty of love despite that pain. Malik, however, is not a traditional performer. Born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents, she has lived in the UK since she was a child and writes and performs in both Urdu and English, often incorporating dramatic spoken passages. She works with musicians from different cultures, employing both traditional and non-traditional instruments. Nor do her songs deal exclusively with traditional subject matter but extend and subvert the form to explore contemporary issues around identity, race and gender. 

On Sunday at the Kennaway House Cellar Bar, singing and speaking over a recorded backing track, Malik used her pure and powerful voice like a scalpel to expose themes of racism and misogyny, transcending suffering into triumph. It was not always a comfortable experience, but that was not her intent – she wants us to face our societal demons in order to defeat them. As she says herself: “I believe art can inform and transform … at a time when barriers are being put up across the world, it is vital to see how art can also unite us, how we can use traditional cross-cultural forms to explore important contemporary issues.”

Malik's songs have been described as “powerful”, “passionate”, “empowering” and “a wake-up call”. Indeed, on Sunday she had the Kennaway audience providing backup vocals of “Wake up! Wake up!” We got the message.