Hasan Raheem submits ‘Bewajah’ for the 2027 Grammy Awards, entering the ballad in the Best Music Video and Best Global Music Performance categories

A voice that grew up in the valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan is now formally in the running for music’s biggest honour. Singer Hasan Raheem announced on Instagram on Thursday that his ballad ‘Bewajah’ has been submitted for consideration at the 2027 Grammy Awards. The entry has gone in under two categories, Best Music Video and Best Global Music Performance. A submission is not a nomination, and Raheem’s team has not claimed otherwise; it simply puts the recording in front of Recording Academy voters for the first round.

A video shot around a mountain polo match

Released earlier this year and produced by Umair, ‘Bewajah’ is sung mostly in Urdu, with a bridge in Shina, the language of Raheem’s home region. That mix is the song’s signature. Its video, directed by Arham Ikram, was filmed in Gilgit around a freestyle polo match, the rough, referee-free version of the game the region is famous for. Raheem appears in white, wearing jewellery, set against players and spectators in dark clothing, with horses and snow-covered peaks filling the frame behind him. It is less a pop video than a postcard from home, and it is the video as much as the song that the Grammy entry leans on.

Nominees are due on November 16

First-round Grammy voting closes on October 22, and the nominations will be announced on November 16. Raheem is following a path other Pakistanis have taken in recent cycles: Meesha Shafi and Arooj Aftab both submitted work last year. Aftab, of course, went further in 2022, when ‘Mohabbat’ won Best Global Music Performance and made her Pakistan’s first Grammy winner. Whether ‘Bewajah’ survives the first round will be known in a month. For now, a Shina verse from Gilgit is sitting in the same inbox as the biggest releases in the world.