About
Kutle Khan, born 10 January 1984 in Rajasthan, is a singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist from the hereditary Manganiyar community, a family of musicians spanning generations. Trained from the age of eight by his father Ustad Jethu Khan, he is celebrated for his command of more than nine percussion and folk instruments, including the khartal, bhapang, morchang, dholak and sarangi.
Khan leads The Kutle Khan Project, blending traditional Rajasthani folk with contemporary and Sufi sound, and has performed in dozens of countries. He featured on Coke Studio @ MTV and MTV Unplugged, won the GiMA Best Folk Single award for Moomal, and provided vocals, morsing and khartal for the A.R. Rahman song Param Sundari. He performs both a pure-folk production, Sounds of Desert, and genre-crossing collaborations.
The artistry
Khan is a singer and virtuoso multi-instrumentalist who moves fluidly between pure Rajasthani folk, Sufi and contemporary sound. He plays khartal, bhapang, morchang, dholak, sarangi and more, and writes and composes his own material, adding modern textures without losing the desert-folk base.
Repertoire
Performance
Publications & productions
Career & milestones
Festivals & appearances
Lineage & training
Recognition
Affiliations
Gallery
Kutle Khan connects on the Culture Atlas graph to the Manganiyar & Langa artform profile, to the Jodhpur RIFF festival and to the Jaisalmer and Jodhpur destination profiles. His profile and Mame Khan's together represent the contemporary Manganiyar community's two most internationally visible voices.
Kutle Khan's performances sustain the Manganiyar tradition's living practice in both its community context, through the hereditary patron relationships of the Thar Desert, and on the international world music stage, through festival tours and recording projects that have brought the tradition's music to global audiences.