William Gamborg's Lahore video: who the Surtaal kids singing Alfaaz are

The video everyone keeps sending you this week is a room full of Lahore children belting out Alfaaz while a Norwegian man in the middle nods along and then gives up and claps. He is William Gamborg, and the children are students of Surtaal Music Academy, a free music school in Krishan Nagar. BBC Urdu reported on Tuesday, 27 October, that the clip had close to nine million views on Instagram alone.

Who is William Gamborg?

Gamborg is a Norwegian singer, songwriter and dancer. BBC Urdu describes him as a member of Quick Style, the Norwegian hip-hop dance crew Pakistanis already know from their wedding routine to Kaifi Khalil’s Kana Yaari. The crew was started by Pakistani-Norwegian twins Suleman and Bilal Malik with their friend Nasir Sirikhan.

Aaj News adds that Gamborg trained at the LIMPI music school in Norway, finishing in 2022, and appeared on Norske Talenter (Norway’s Got Talent) back in 2014. His own songs are in Norwegian, so this is not a man who grew up on Punjabi music. That is part of why the clip works: you can see him hearing it properly for the first time.

How did he end up at Surtaal?

The academy’s founder, musician and music researcher Zia-ul-Haq, told BBC Urdu the video was recorded the week before, when “Zulfi bhai from Coke Studio” brought Gamborg over. That is Xulfi, the producer behind recent Coke Studio seasons. Gamborg then posted the clip on his Instagram and TikTok, and it took off from there.

Who are the Surtaal kids?

According to the Playing For Change Foundation, which supports the school, Surtaal was set up in 2019 to train a new generation of musicians and give children from low-income families free lessons. Zia-ul-Haq told the BBC that more than 100 children study there now. He sometimes goes to villages around Lahore to look for talent, offers scholarships, and many students practise four to five hours a day after school. The children in the video were selected students.

This is not their first viral moment either. Zia-ul-Haq said a performance at a Pakistan Super League event also spread widely, and Ali Zafar once set up a collaboration between the students and Lahore Qalandars.

Why Alfaaz?

The song is Hamza Malik and Zain Zohaib’s Punjabi love song, which spent weeks at No. 1 on Spotify Pakistan (we covered its chart run here). The line the kids hit hardest roughly says you are lovelier than the stars and there will never be anyone like you. Sung by a room of young voices instead of a studio, it sounds less like a pop hit and more like a mehfil, which is exactly what people are responding to.

How India and others reacted

The clip travelled across the border fast. BBC Urdu quoted the Instagram page India Talents, which shared it with a caption saying Pakistan does not just make music but feelings that touch the soul. Bengali film and TV actor Rohan Bhattacharjee left a heart and thanked the uploader. Other Indian users called it rich with music, and one said she had watched it four times.

American journalist Caitlin Doornbos, who covered US-Iran talks from Islamabad this year, wrote on X that the video gave her real peace and asked if she could join a session like it on her next visit. One Pakistani user summed up the mood with a joke: the kids have their own Diet Coke Studio.

What next

Surtaal’s Instagram has more clips from the same visit, with Gamborg joining other songs. If Xulfi brought him, the obvious question is whether these children end up on a Coke Studio stage. Nobody has said so yet, and until they do, treat it as a wish, not news.