Ali Zafar made his debut as a musician with the album Huqa Pani, released in Pakistan in 2003 and worldwide in 2005. The album was an instant hit, selling over 600,000 copies worldwide and winning several major awards and nominations. It also put him into the league of the most popular artists ever to have come out of Pakistan with a massive fan following locally and internationally. With time he proved to be perhaps one of the most versatile singer in the modern generation with a distinct vocal tone and qualities, specially during his folk and Sufi renditions in the "Coke Studio (Pakistan)", where he surprised his audiences with live renditions of difficult notes with much ease and ranging his singing from pop to folk to semi-classical. His new songs, namely "Allah Hu", "Yaar Dhadhi Ishq" (a cover), "Nahin Ray Nahin" and "Daastan-e-Ishq", won the hearts of millions all over the world once again and earned him a new era of fan following.[citation needed]
Zafar at the premiere of Tere Bin Laden
He won the award for "Best Album" category at the Lux Style Awards in 2004 for his massive hit album Huqa Pani and also the "Best Male Artist" at the 2008 MTV awards.[14] In addition to the album's popularity being reflected in the music stores and by critics, it has been widely claimed that Himesh Reshammiya copied one of the most well-known tracks from the album, "Rangeen", for his song "Dillagi Mein Jo".[15][16] Soon Pritam too copied his track "Channo" as "Chori ki Baatein" in the film Fight Club.
Zafar launched his second album "Masty" nationwide in November 2006. He has since released four videos from the album, titled "Masty", "Sajania", "Dekha" and "Aasmaan", which again went to become a big hit and the audience loved it a lot.[8][9]
He released his third video of the single "Dekha", from his second album, which was the most expensive music video of Pakistan, costing more than ten million rupees. The video was shot in Malaysia, produced by the Lux Company, and had the Pakistani actress-models Reema Khan, Meera, and Amina Haq starring in it. Zafar also won the "Youth Icon" award in the Lux Style Awards 2007, in Malaysia.
Besides being a singer, painter, model and an actor, Zafar also produced and directed his music video "Ek Pal" from his first album Huqa Pani. His song "Dekha" from his album Masty was part of the soundtrack of the American film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which was released on 24 September 2010. He is the fourth Pakistani artist after Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Strings and Atif Aslam to have a song(s) featured in an American film.
On 14 February, Zafar released his third album, which was much different from his earlier works consisting of Sufi semi-classical rendition of folk
