This is the first post in a multi-part series on Abdulla Abdurehim I’ve asked many people why Abdulla “Aka” (Older Brother) Abdurehim is the undisputed King of Uyghur Music. It’s not that he has the gravitas of a young Elvis Presley, the steely resolve of Johnny Cash, the working-class poetics of Bruce Springsteen or the song and dance routine of the trickster Bob Dylan. People talk about the catchiness of his melodies, the way the best song writers flock to him like pigeons to a master and women flutter around him like moths to a flame. Yet these explanations always leave me unsatisfied. Abdulla is after all an average looking middle aged man from Kashgar. He’s average height. He has a moustache. It wasn’t until I watched a low-quality video (below) of him singing at an olturush or “sitting” that I began to appreciate the quiet dignity of his disposition – what Heidegger would call his being-in-the-world – and the way the burning passion of his voice fills a room. Abdulla carries a flame. When he …