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In this article, drawing on my doctoral fieldwork conducted in Muscat and throughout the Gulf from 2014 to 2017, I contend that the contemporary popular music produced and consumed by Muscat's Baloch community refracts into multiple strains inscribed with specific geocultural orientations. Muscat bears the commonly overlooked distinction of being a major capital of Baloch culture, and home to the largest concentration of Baloch in the world outside of Balochistan and Karachi. One result of this transregional history today is an explicit acknowlegment of the diversity of Oman's citizenry, with Arabs, WaSwahili (or Zanjibaris), and Baloch the largest of the groups gathered together under a unified - but explicitly pluralistic - national identity. But also unique to Oman is its history as an empire in the Western Indian Ocean region whose holdings once extended from Zanzibar to the Gwadar peninsula, a history bound up with centuries of the Indian Ocean slave trade. Omanis often express pride in their ruler, their culture, and the respectful harmonious nature of Omani society.
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Owing to the legacy of the late Sultan Qaboos, Oman is one of the most peaceable and staunchly diplomatic nations in the world. Far less ostentatious or fast-paced than other Gulf capitals, Muscat's landscape is dominated by pools of blinding white villas densely collected amid the crags and shadows of a barren, rocky coastline. Muscat is known internationally as a low-key, unassuming city with a faint aura of Indian Ocean mystique.