‘He lives on each time someone strikes the drum’: the legacy of tabla player Zakir Hussain

By turns frenetically fast and hulkingly heavy, yet somehow nimble and tender, tabla player Zakir Hussain’s percussive sound was one of a kind. Over the course of his five-decade career, Hussain was renowned globally for his capacity to blend Indian classical tradition with jazz, electronica, folk and psychedelia. 

Bestowed with the honorific of Ustad, meaning a master of his craft, Hussain collaborated with artists across genres, from West Coast psychedelic pioneers the Grateful Dead to George Harrison, banjo player Béla Fleck and jazz saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and Charles Lloyd.

He founded the jazz fusion group Shakti with guitarist John McLaughlin and the electronic-influenced group Tabla Beat Science with producer and bassist Bill Laswell, ultimately earning nine Grammy nominations and four wins for his boundary-breaking sense of creativity. 

One year on from his death in 2024 at 73, the musical gap left by his passing remains unfilled. 

Read the feature in Hyphen.

[This piece was published on 15/12/25]