WHO IS URVAH KHAN?

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Urvah Khan is a Canadian-Pakistani rapper, rocker, curator and self-described professional shit disturber whose work exists at the intersection of music, migration, faith, identity, and resistance.

Born in Karachi, raised in Abu Dhabi, and forged on the streets of Toronto’s Malvern neighbourhood, Khan has spent nearly two decades refusing to fit neatly into any one genre, culture, or community. From homelessness to international stages, from Islam to Christianity and the reclamation of the Islamic Azaan, her life has been a collision of worlds that were never supposed to coexist. Rather than choosing between them, she built something of her own.

Khan created SCRAP, a collision of rap, punk, rock, South Asian, and world sounds that defies conventional genres and reflects her multicultural upbringing.

With six major musical releases, more than 30 independently produced music videos, and a career spanning Canada, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom, Khan has established herself as an artist who refuses conventional boundaries. She has opened for Canadian rock icon Bif Naked, as well as artists including Jasmine Sandlas, Danny Fernandes, Saukrates, and Choclair. Her performances have taken her to festivals and stages including WorldPride, NXNE, Canadian Music Week, Indie Week, Pride Toronto, desiFEST, IRIE Fest and more.

Her music has also reached audiences far beyond the concert stage. In 2012, Khan’s songs I Just Wanna and War Drumwere featured at the Winter X Games, introducing her music to an international sporting audience. War Drum was also featured prominently in filmmaker Maya Bastian’s How to Be Brown, while Playground appeared in Fawzia Mirza’s The Syed Family Xmas Eve Game Night.

Khan’s screen credits also include Fawzia Mirza’s Noor & Layla, which featured her rendition of the Islamic call to prayer, the Azaan, and Mirza’s Jiyo. She also appeared in Nicole Teeny’s documentary Unity Mosque. In 2015, filmmaker RJ Maloney explored Khan’s life and artistic identity in The Wrath of Urvah Khan. A new documentary, Rock Khan Roll, is currently in development, continuing to explore Khan’s unconventional journey through music, migration, faith, and resistance.

Her work has attracted international media coverage from BBC, CBC, VICE, SOCAN, the South China Morning Post, and other outlets. In 2016, Khan formed The Scrap Army in Pakistan, emerging as a pioneering female voice in the country’s rap and punk landscape.

But Khan’s ambitions were never limited to the microphone.

In 2019, she founded ScrapFest in Canada, expanding the festival to Pakistan in 2021. Between 2019 and 2023, she produced ten events showcasing underground, LGBTQI+, and marginalized artists across both countries.

In 2023, Pakistani authorities prevented two planned ScrapFest events from proceeding: one in a public setting in Karachi following proceedings in the Sindh High Court, and another at a private venue in Lahore through action by the Deputy Commissioner. With the safety of her artists at risk, Khan relocated the performers to undisclosed locations, where they performed in secret, were compensated for their work, and had their performances professionally filmed. Rather than allowing the authorities to erase the events, Khan released the performances online for audiences around the world to watch. What was meant to silence the artists became an opportunity to amplify their voices far beyond the stages they had been denied.

First they took away the public stage. Then the private one. She kept building stages anyway.

In 2020, Khan founded Muslim Pride, a cultural and performance platform celebrating queer and trans Muslim artists. Launched virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, the initiative became a live event at Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in 2023.

In 2025, Khan expanded Muslim Pride internationally, presenting events at New York City’s historic Stonewall Inn and NYC LGBT Center. Having featured more than 100 queer and trans Muslim artists across seven events, Muslim Pride has plans for Toronto, New York City, and Washington, D.C., in 2027.

Khan’s contributions to music, arts, and cultural leadership have earned institutional recognition, including the 2025 Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Fellowship and a 2020 Woman Achiever Award presented at Toronto City Hall. In 2025, she also served on the grant adjudication panel for the Inspirit Foundation’s Narrative Funding program, helping evaluate applications and make funding recommendations in support of Muslim artists and storytellers.

What began as one woman’s search for somewhere to belong has become a career dedicated to creating spaces where others can belong, too. Musician became bandleader. Bandleader became curator. Curator became community builder.

At the centre of it all is a word Khan created for her music: SCRAP.

It began as a sound. It became a philosophy.

Taking what the world discards: people, voices, and ideas—and bringing them together to create something beautiful, powerful, and impossible to ignore.