Qasam, the new Coke Studio Nu.WAV song from Shae Gill and Afusic, has passed 16 million views on YouTube within five days of its release, becoming one of the fastest-rising Pakistani music videos of the year.
The track, released on 30 October 2026, pairs two of the country’s most talked-about young voices with producer Abdullah Kasumbi, and its run has been remarkable from the first weekend. It reached nearly nine million views in its first three days, then kept climbing, crossing 16 million views by 4 November and sitting among the most-watched videos in Pakistan this week.
For a song built on heartbreak, the numbers tell their own story. Qasam is not a loud, celebratory track. It is a slow-burning song about a relationship that hurts and still refuses to let go, and audiences have responded to it in huge numbers.
A Song About Holding On
At its heart, Qasam is about the pull of a relationship that has been damaged but not broken. The lyrics, written by Afusic, follow two people who have hurt each other yet cannot walk away, circling the same promises and the same pain.
That tension runs through the whole song. The words are direct and unadorned, written in the plain language of everyday conversation rather than poetry, which is part of why listeners have taken to them so quickly. The chorus lands like a vow made in the middle of an argument, half apology and half refusal to give up.
Afusic composed the track with Kasumbi, and the pairing of the two songwriters gives Qasam its shape: a modern pop song that never lets go of its South Asian roots.
Sarangi Meets Electronic Beats
The sound of Qasam is where it stands apart from the rest of the Nu.WAV releases. Kasumbi’s production is built on contemporary electronic beats, but running through the middle of it is the sarangi, played by Gul Khan, giving the track a distinctly South Asian ache.
The contrast is deliberate. The electronic arrangement pushes the song forward with energy, while the sarangi pulls it back towards something older and more emotional. It is the sound of a new generation of Pakistani pop, confident enough to mix a classical instrument into a modern track without treating it as decoration.
Kasumbi produced, arranged and mixed the song, with Sean Tallman handling the mastering, and Kamal Khan executive-producing the release. The result is polished without losing the rawness that the lyrics demand.
Filmed Inside Karachi’s Century-Old Bristol Hotel
The music video, directed by Kasumbi himself, was filmed inside the Bristol Hotel in Karachi, a building more than a century old, and its worn grandeur suits the song perfectly.
Rather than telling a straightforward story, the video is built around movement. Shae Gill and Afusic move through the hotel’s faded rooms and corridors, sometimes together and sometimes apart, with movement director Shams Mansur shaping the choreography around the song’s central idea of a relationship struggling to hold together.
Babar Dahr handled the cinematography and Hammad Sohail oversaw the production design, and the video’s deep reds and shadows give it a mood that matches the music. It looks like a film still as much as a music video, and that cinematic quality has helped it travel well beyond the usual Coke Studio audience.
The Numbers Behind the Run
Qasam’s rise has been fast by any measure. Nearly nine million views in three days put it among the strongest openings of the Nu.WAV series, and passing 16 million within five days confirmed that it was not a one-day spike.
The song has ranked among Pakistan’s trending videos on YouTube all week, and the response has been loudest from younger listeners, who have shared clips of the chorus across social media and driven the track’s numbers higher with every passing day.
For Shae Gill, the run is another reminder of her pull with audiences. She first became a household name with Pasoori in Coke Studio Season 14 in 2022, a song that has since passed one billion views, and Qasam shows that her voice still carries the same weight with listeners four years on.
What Is Coke Studio Nu.WAV?
Qasam is the fifth of six releases from Coke Studio Nu.WAV, the platform’s newer series for experimental sounds and emerging artists. It follows Dil, Rangeen, Maheya and Shabnam, with one final track still to come.
Nu.WAV has given Coke Studio room to try things its main season would not, pairing established names with newer voices and letting producers like Kasumbi shape both the sound and the visuals of a track. Qasam is the clearest example yet of that approach working, with the producer directing the video as well as the music.
The series is distributed by Warner Music MENA, and the Qasam release was produced by Gali Films.
What’s Next for Qasam
The run is not over yet. An acoustic version of the song has already been released, stripping the track back to its voice and melody, and an “Off The Record” behind-the-scenes film shows how the song and video came together.
With one more Nu.WAV release still to come, the series has saved its biggest moment for Qasam, and the song’s numbers suggest the audience is ready for whatever follows. For now, though, Qasam belongs to Shae Gill, Afusic and Kasumbi, and to the millions of listeners who have made a song about holding on into one of the year’s biggest Pakistani hits.
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