FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — 7 November 2026
From Black Opal Country, a New Way to Hear the World
Australia's World Pop artist Mahmood Khan launches his own WORLD POP radio show on Lightning Ridge's Opal FM 89.7, beginning Saturday 14 November 2026.
The songs. The stories. The cultures they create.
LIGHTNING RIDGE, NSW — For generations, people have travelled to Lightning Ridge hoping to discover something extraordinary beneath the surface.
On Saturday 14 November, the town's community radio station, Opal FM 89.7, will invite listeners to make a different kind of discovery: the extraordinary worlds hidden inside songs they thought they already knew.
WORLD POP with Mahmood Khan is a new weekly Australian radio program that brings listeners inside the musical imagination of an artist whose career has crossed continents, cultures and genres.
For Mahmood Khan, Australia's World Pop artist, this is something he has spent a lifetime preparing to share.
What does a songwriter hear when he listens to the Bee Gees? What fascinates a record producer about Barbra Streisand? What happens when an irresistible African-influenced bass line enters a Paul Simon recording? And why can several acoustic guitars playing together create a sound so overwhelming that a listener never forgets the experience?
These are not questions ordinarily asked on popular music radio.
They are the beginnings of WORLD POP.
Hearing music through an artist's mind
The idea behind WORLD POP is deceptively simple: great recordings have much more to reveal than most of us realise.
Drawing on four decades of songwriting, recording, producing and collaborating with musicians, Khan takes listeners beyond the familiar melodies into the choices, accidents, cultural influences and human experiences that made those recordings extraordinary.
In a signature feature called Hear That?, he draws attention to small musical moments that can change the way an entire recording is heard.
A rhythm that plays tricks on the ear. A harmony that makes a voice feel larger than life. A bass phrase that transforms an arrangement.
But WORLD POP is not a technical lecture. It is an invitation to share the excitement of discovery.
"I've often wondered what it would be like to sit with Barry Gibb, one of my great musical heroes, and hear him play the records that shaped his imagination," says Khan. "Not just talk about his own hits, but tell us what he hears in other people's music. What moves him. What fascinates him. What he learned. That's something I would find invaluable. WORLD POP is my opportunity to share that kind of experience."
The inaugural episode journeys through recordings by ABBA, Paul Simon, the Gipsy Kings, Cliff Richard, Barbra Streisand and the Bee Gees, alongside Khan's own Like the River—a song introduced through a deeply personal story about the relationship between our intentions, actions and lives.
Why Lightning Ridge matters
The program's first broadcaster is not a metropolitan network. It is Opal FM 89.7, callsign 2LRR, operated by the Lightning Ridge Community Radio Association in one of Australia's most distinctive outback communities.
On Yuwaalaraay and Gamilaraay Country, Lightning Ridge has become internationally renowned for its rare black opals. Its mining history brought together people from many nations, building a community with an extraordinary mixture of cultural backgrounds, resourcefulness and enterprise.
For more than a century, treasures discovered in this corner of New South Wales have travelled into the wider world.
There is a fitting parallel with WORLD POP.
Just as Lightning Ridge's precious stones reveal remarkable colours hidden beneath an unassuming surface, the program seeks to reveal the richness concealed within familiar music. Both stories speak to discovery, human curiosity and the extraordinary value that can emerge from unexpected places.
Opal FM's decision to give WORLD POP its first broadcast home is therefore more than a programming addition. It places a regional Australian broadcaster at the beginning of a new cultural venture with national ambitions.
"People often imagine that important cultural projects must begin in Sydney, Melbourne or somewhere overseas," Khan says. "But Lightning Ridge is already a place of international significance. Ann and Opal FM have opened the door for this program, and I'm proud that our first broadcast belongs to their community. I hope that as WORLD POP travels, people will remember where it began."
Diversity is not simply something to celebrate. It is something we create with.
At the heart of WORLD POP is a wider proposition about Australia's cultural future.
Much of the world's most beloved popular music emerged because musical traditions crossed borders.
African-American soul and funk, European pop craftsmanship, African rhythms, South Asian melodies, Latin musical traditions and orchestral influences have continually met, borrowed, evolved and created new forms of expression.
Khan's own career embodies that exchange. His achievements include a multi-million-selling album collaboration with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, an ARIA No. 1 on the Physical Singles Chart with Like the River, recorded live at the Sydney Opera House, and a Billboard No. 1 on the Classical Crossover Albums Chart with the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra. His work has also reached Australian television audiences, including through Nine's Today Extra.
For Khan, cultural diversity is not merely a social ideal to be acknowledged. It is a source of artistic invention—and potentially one of Australia's great creative and commercial strengths.
When cultures meet, they create new sounds. When those sounds reach people, they create shared experiences. And when audiences return for those experiences, they create opportunities for new recordings, performances, collaborations, broadcasting, touring and cultural exports.
The opportunity is to move beyond celebrating diversity in principle and begin creating lasting cultural and economic value from what our different histories enable us to make together.
WORLD POP puts that belief into practice through something almost everyone already loves: great music.
A program designed to grow
Produced independently from Khan's Northern Rivers studio, WORLD POP begins as a weekly hour of remarkable recordings, personal encounters and musical discoveries.
As the series develops, it will introduce conversations with musicians, songwriters, producers and creative thinkers; explore the philosophy of music and its relationship with human life; examine the art of music production; and provide opportunities to discover new recordings and musical projects.
Its ambition is to become a continuing meeting place between artists, audiences and cultures—a place where listeners don't simply hear songs, but discover the people and ideas behind them.
And it is designed to travel.
Broadcasters throughout Australia are invited to become part of WORLD POP's growing journey. Community, regional, metropolitan and national radio services are welcome to explore carrying the weekly program, with Opal FM proudly recognised as its inaugural broadcaster.
A program about music crossing borders should, after all, be able to cross a few broadcasting boundaries of its own.
From the black opal fields of Lightning Ridge to listening rooms across Australia, WORLD POP begins with a simple belief:
The more deeply we listen to one another, the more extraordinary the world becomes.
WORLD POP with Mahmood Khan
The songs. The stories. The cultures they create.
Premiere: Saturday 14 November 2026
Inaugural broadcaster: Opal FM 89.7 (2LRR), Lightning Ridge, NSW
Created and hosted by: Mahmood Khan
Official WORLD POP show page: Visit WORLD POP
Listen to Episode 1: Listener edition
Broadcaster preview: 320 kbps broadcaster edition
Broadcast and media enquiries: mahmoodkhanteam@gmail.com