Nazrul Geeti covers the songs written by Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bangladesh's designated National Poet. Like Rabindra Sangeet these are Bengali-language songs on harmonium plus tabla, but Nazrul's aesthetic was louder and more eclectic — he pulled in Arabic ghazal meter, Persian imagery, Carnatic phrasing from South India, British music-hall tunes and even jazz-tinged arrangements. Tempos span 6-beat Dadra and 8-beat Kaharwa dance tempos through the free-rhythm ghazal frame. Content includes Islamic devotional songs (hamd, naat), anti-colonial anthems, love songs, children's songs, and even Hindu goddess-praise (Shyama Sangeet) — a lyrical breadth Tagore avoided.

Nazrul was born in 1899 in Burdwan (present-day West Bengal, India) into a poor Muslim family. He enlisted in the British Indian Army in 1917, was posted to Karachi, and there taught himself Persian poetry. In 1922 he published the anti-colonial poem 'Anandamoyeer Aagomone' and was jailed for a year for sedition; Tagore dedicated a poetry collection to him from outside the prison. Through the 1930s he recorded hundreds of songs for Columbia and HMV in Calcutta. In 1942, at 43, he suddenly lost his speech and hearing to what modern medicine suspects was Pick's disease or Wilson's disease, and never composed again in the remaining 34 years of his life. In 1972 the newly independent Bangladesh granted him citizenship; he died in Dhaka in 1976 and was buried on the Dhaka University mosque grounds.

Nazrul used many more meters than Tagore — 16-beat Teentaal, 12-beat Ektaal, 10-beat Jhaptaal turn up regularly, and the resulting rhythmic push is what feels different from Rabindra Sangeet. He was also the first Bengali composer to import the Urdu ghazal 'sher' couplet structure into Bengali song, so the second line of a phrase reliably jumps to a higher register in a ghazal-like arc. Firoza Begum's 1954 HMV recordings — made under Nazrul's own late-career supervision — remain the reference.

Start with 'Karar Oi Louho Kopat' (the 1922 prison-composed song), then Firoza Begum's 1954 'Mor Priya Hobe Esho Rani' for the ghazal-derived form.

Nazrul lived 34 years after losing his speech, unable to compose or perform, dying in Dhaka in 1976 aged 77. His grave is on the Dhaka University campus and remains a student pilgrimage site. His grandson Kazi Anirban is an active Bangladeshi musician performing rock arrangements of his grandfather's songs.