Music Quote by Nusrat F. A. Khan

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s line reads like modesty, but it’s really a manifesto for how great artists stay alive. Coming from a singer so closely identified with qawwali’s devotional intensity, the sentence quietly pushes back against the museum-glass version of tradition: the idea that purity means isolation. “I do listen” is doing social work here. It signals openness without surrender, curiosity without cosplay. The key phrase is “pick up what is good” - not “what is popular,” not “what sells,” not even “what I like.” Good is a craft standard, a moral standard, a filter.

The subtext is that influence is inevitable, so the only real choice is whether you metabolize it consciously. Khan frames listening as apprenticeship rather than consumption. It’s also a gentle assertion of authority: he gets to decide what counts as “good,” which is what masters do. In one clause, he grants other music respect while reserving the right to discriminate - a crucial move for an artist navigating global audiences who often want “world music” to be either exotic and sealed off, or diluted into something familiar.

Context matters: Khan rose as recordings, tours, and cross-cultural collaborations made it possible for sacred, regional music to circulate like pop. This line is a defense against both gatekeepers and tourists. He’s saying: I will learn from outside my house, but I’m not redecorating it for your comfort. That’s how tradition evolves without losing its spine.