Mo Sabri grew up in East Tennessee with two distinct soundtracks in his home: the ecstatic, devotional qawwali his Pakistani immigrant parents loved, and the country classics of Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers that filled the air where he lived. Johnson City, his hometown, sits a short drive from Bristol — a place often called the birthplace of country music — and those regional rhythms shaped him as much as the South Asian music of family gatherings.
Today Sabri is a country artist based in Nashville who openly identifies as Pakistani American and Muslim. His recordings and videos move between original country songs and covers of qawwali pieces, reflecting both sides of his upbringing. On his YouTube channel he posts everything from lighthearted country tunes like “Married in a Barn” to renditions of classic qawwalis such as “Tajdar e Haram.”
This blending of traditions reaches a milestone when Sabri performs with the Nashville Symphony on May 31. The orchestra will present an orchestral arrangement of his new album Tennessee Desi, a project that intentionally merges Appalachian country textures with qawwali, the Sufi devotional form whose name traces back to the Arabic word meaning “to speak.” The collaboration is being noted by local music professionals as a meaningful moment for representation and the widening of what Tennessee music can sound like.
For Sabri, the concert is also a homecoming. He describes himself as “half-country, half-desi,” using the South Asian term desi to describe people of the subcontinent and its diaspora. That hybrid identity is at the heart of his work: a personal effort to honor both the landscape he grew up in and the culture his parents brought with them.
Country music felt natural to him. Despite broad associations of the genre with a white, conservative audience, Sabri says country is where he feels most at liberty to tell truths about his life. He likens the creative freedom of writing country songs to a kind of punk honesty: places where he can write about being Muslim in spaces many assume he doesn’t belong. And the everyday imagery of country songs — porches, sunsets, trucks with the windows down — matched his childhood in East Tennessee.
Qawwali became a deeper interest for Sabri around the start of the pandemic. He turned to those devotional songs to connect more closely with his parents and to the culture he had not experienced firsthand; he has never lived in Pakistan. He also discovered a sense of responsibility to the form — he believes he may be distantly related to the Sabri Brothers, a famed qawwali duo — and wanted to honor the tradition with care.
Qawwali blends Sufi poetry with call-and-response singing, handclaps, and driven rhythms, meant to lift listeners into ecstatic or contemplative states. That energy would often spark dancing and clapping at family gatherings in Johnson City. On Tennessee Desi, Sabri juxtaposes a bluegrass staple like “Rocky Top” with qawwalis such as “Allah Hoo,” which explores themes of creation in Islamic tradition. In preparing the project, he found surprising common ground: both country and qawwali are folk forms rooted in particular places and communities, and both frequently grapple with religious and existential themes.
Blending the two traditions posed musical challenges. Qawwali and South Asian music rely on microtones and scales that don’t align precisely with Western 12-note tuning. Sabri and his collaborators used techniques common to country and blues — for example, slide guitar — to approximate the microtonal inflections and create a satisfying sonic bridge between the styles.
How do listeners respond to the fusion? At an early showcase in Indiana, Sabri says the audience included people from different political backgrounds, longtime country fans, and South Asian relatives. All seemed to find something to enjoy, often in different ways. On social platforms, listeners from South Asia have praised his qawwali covers for their emotional impact; others have offered constructive criticism about his pronunciation when singing in Urdu. Sabri admits his spoken Urdu is slower than his comprehension, and he sees the feedback as part of a process of growth.
Sabri’s family story underpins the music. His parents emigrated in different decades, his father in the 1970s and his mother in the 1980s, leaving mountainous regions near Rawalpindi for the mountains of East Tennessee. They sought opportunities they had not had at home, and Sabri sees his work with the Symphony as a milestone that honors their sacrifices. Performing these hybrid songs on a major stage feels to him like a full-circle moment — and, he says, like his parents’ American dream come true.