Nusrat Durrani

Nusrat Durrani is the creator and executive producer of the Rebel Music series. Nusrat joined MTV Networks in 1996 and has served in key business and creative roles in the company including the launch of MTV.COM, VHI.COM and the creation of MTV World, Viacom’s global engine for content and innovation of which he is the General Manager and Senior Vice President. In this capacity he has helmed numerous projects including the award winning live music series The Music Experiment and The Best New Band in the World, as well as the multi-platform global music and pop culture channel MTV Iggy and the hyper-focused brands MTV Desi (South-Asian) and MTV K (K-Pop).

Nusrat is driven to find inventive ways to expose young audiences to music and culture from around the world as a way of connecting the world’s youth to each other and to the issues affecting them. He believes sharing pop culture can go a long way to making the world a better place. In his own words, “modern media offers real opportunities to correct the great imbalance that exists in what we know of the world. There are refreshing alternative narratives out there about what’s really happening today and we want to tell stories that deserve to be told, and not those dominated by the loudest, most powerful voices.”

Born in Lucknow, India, before joining MTV he was a marketing manager for Honda in Dubai, UAE and has also lived and worked in New Delhi. He was inspired to quit his job and travel New York to work for MTV by the 1983 video for David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” — and by his passion for new media and pop culture. On October 17, the Asia Society honored Nusrat’s work with MTV World with its Cultural Achievement Award in New York City. Nusrat is also the recipient of the Pinnacle Achievement Award from The Asian American Business Development Center and the Trailblazer Award from South Asian Media and Marketing Association.