Coke Studio’s "Sound of the Nation": Cultural Development in Times of Terror

Abstract

This paper explores the role of Coke Studio Pakistan as a site of cultural development during a period of heightened terrorist violence and national crisis. Emerging in 2008 under the slogan “Sound of the Nation,” Coke Studio offered not just music, but a symbolic narrative of hope, plurality, and continuity at a time when Pakistan’s public sphere was deeply fractured. The study examines how the platform became a cultural and emotional refuge, producing an inclusive national soundscape that resisted both silence and sectarian fragmentation. While development is often framed in economic or institutional terms, this paper approaches it as symbolic, affective, and identity-based, especially in contexts where traditional development infrastructures are under stress. Drawing on frameworks from soft power theory, and postcolonial critique, the paper analyzes selected performances—including Tājdār-e-Haram, Jugnī, Bībī Sanam Jānam, and Pasoṛī —to show how Coke Studio projected narratives of resilience, sacredness, regional diversity, and aesthetic renewal. These songs functioned as cultural interventions, subtly challenging dominant narratives of fear while providing emotional scaffolding for a fragmented society. The paper also critically engages with the tensions inherent in corporate-sponsored cultural production. While Coca-Cola’s branding raises questions about the commercialization of national identity, the platform nonetheless enabled an alternative form of development—one grounded in symbolic capital, emotional survival, and the aesthetic performance of unity. Moreover, this paper argues that in turbulent times, culture itself becomes a terrain of development, and that platforms like Coke Studio must be taken seriously as agents of both affective reconstruction and nation-building.