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Sameer Rahat is a modern-day troubadour, who masterfully blurs the lines between performer, poet, and film composer. SR is almost two decades into a practice rooted in his lineage: born to legendary Urdu poets Anjum Rehbar and Rahat Indori, his art is not merely an auditory experience, it is cinema for the ears. He came to music through language. His early education happened at mushairas, in green rooms, and at family tables where verse was the weather of the house. That inheritance remains audible, though not decorative. It shapes how he writes a hook, cuts a cue to picture, and holds a live room.

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At sixteen he founded Joshish, a post-progressive rock band that became part of Bhopal's emerging rock scene in the late 2000s. Joshish performed across India and released its debut record, Ird-Grd, in 2017, an album written almost entirely in Urdu and noted for placing poetic writing inside a form that usually refuses it. He moved to Bombay in 2011 to study filmmaking, carrying the band and its language with him. Joshish ran for eleven years and has since stepped quietly aside as that composer has grown.

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His records and his stage are the centre of the practice, and recent years have been a return to that source. His debut solo album, Aamad (2020), reached #1 on the iTunes India Pop chart and introduced the self-styled sound he then called Urdu-blues: acoustic, cinematic, slow-burning. The 2025 follow-up, Roz Marra, widened the palette toward electronic production and was selected for Spotify's RADAR India and Global programmes. His third album, Puraana, arrives in 2026 in a register he calls Urdu Electronica: production-forward, dance-leaning, lyric-centred. Across the three records the surrounding sound has shifted from acoustic singer-songwriter territory toward contemporary electronic and alternative production, though the lyric remains the centre of gravity.

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On stage he performs in three configurations: solo, duo, and a seven-piece ensemble with horns and choir, often weaving spoken verse into song. Over the past five years he has played Ranthambore, NMACC, Kala Ghoda, SpokenFest, Sofar Sounds, Prithvi Theatre, Udaipur Tales, Durbar Music Festival, and the Hyderabad Literary Festival, among others. He made his international debut at SJQ, London in 2024, and completed a solo tour of Germany in summer 2025.

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The film work runs alongside, and he carries it gracefully. His screen credits as composer include two collaborations with director Hansal Mehta: Faraaz (2022), which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival, and the “Baai” episode of Modern Love Mumbai (2022, Prime Video). Major lyricist credits include Sector 36 (Netflix), Hush Hush (Prime Video), The Fame Game (Netflix), and many more. Earlier composer work includes Homecoming, Ashok Vatika, Little Things, and What the Folks, alongside music for Sony LIV, Disney+ Hotstar, and documentaries that have premiered internationally.

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Since 2014 he has composed out of Baqsa Studios, the writing and recording room he founded in Bombay. Baqsa's advertising slate, for Google, Gemini, Uber, and Vice News, has been recognised at Cannes Lions, D&AD, The One Show, Spikes Asia, and Kyoorius. The room doubles as a gathering place for directors, poets, and instrumentalists; most of his records have started there.

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What he is making now is contemporary, culturally specific, and built to travel. It carries forward a family practice in a different language of production: poetry kept close to the people who need it, sung in Urdu, Hindi, and English, and aimed at the world.