When ELLE speaks with Aryana Sayeed, she is fresh off the Bama Multicultural Music Awards stage in Hamburg. After accepting the Afghan Icon Award, the singer stepped down safely off the podium.

In any other circumstance, that nugget of information wouldn't be particularly significant, but Sayeed has risked her life to step down safely off podiums. Back in August, she was scheduled to perform at the Ghazi Stadium in her native Kabul, Afghanistan. The same place where, during Taliban rule, women were regularly shot dead in front of thousands of people for small crimes without any court or trial.

'There were planned protests by extremist groups so the Afghan Police and Afghan Army made us cancel the concert because it was so unsafe. I insisted that even if I have to go on the street to perform and get killed, I'll still go ahead with the show. So it was moved to a local hotel where thousands of people still attended,' she tells ELLE, triumphantly, 'During the concert performance itself, quite honestly I had accepted that I could potentially get killed that night.'

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The 32-year-old singer has become Afghanistan's biggest pop star, and it's largely down to this kind of activism. She also has garnered a feminist following among millennial Afghans like no other woman has ever received. It's an intimidating role that she bears with pride. 'If I shy away from the responsibility that comes with my platform, I wouldn't be comfortable with myself,' she says.

The artist describes the themes of her music as a balance between campaigning for the rights of Afghan Women and pure entertainment. She was a coach on The Voice Afghanistan and is responsible for bringing 'live singing' back to the country. 'The extremist Taliban government banned music all together,' she explains. 'Until the time I returned to Afghanistan, the new generation of singers would primarily perform in playback format. My first ever concert in Afghanistan was with a full live band and I sang live, which was a refreshing experience for the Afghan population in general.'

She's amazing, clearly, but not everyone is pleased. While her formidable mix of self-possession and raw artistic talent has resonated with people across the world (290K Instagram followers and counting), she also receives daily death threats from ereligious extremists through to the media.

'During Ramadan a TV station called Noorin TV have a one hour show with a Mullah (Islamic Priest) as their guest and the whole time they would talk about me. Their discussion was about how I was corrupting the society by singing and dancing and how I was misleading the Women of Afghanistan to pursue the wrong path. On the thirteenth night, all these priests came together and as a group they issued a Fatwaah (Islamic call for action) that said anyone out there who cuts off my head and brings it to them would go to Heaven. That probably was the scariest moment for me.'

Aryana, who identifies as Muslim, tells me she knows exactly why people are intimidated.

'I encourage people to use their own brains and pursue their own way of life. This doesn't mean that I try to sidetrack them from following their religion. The extremists, however, use the name of religion to suppress women, to force their way of life on others. The important fact is that the religion we follow, our holy book, is in Arabic while unofficially I can tell you that less than 2% of the population actually understands Arabic.

'Hence, the majority of the population does not understand even the words they recite when they pray five times a day. It is the Mullahs, most of whom are extremists themselves, who dictate to the general population what the religion is all about and many of them are illiterate in Arabic themselves. Because of my influence and since I try to free women especially, they get intimidated by me and try to cause any and every type of harm possible.'

Aryana is without a doubt an entertainer, in possession of a talent, beauty and glamour that could put her in the hall of fame with some of the most iconic chanteuses of the 20th Century. But at the forefront of her art is women's rights in Afghanistan. Sixteen years after the end of brutal Taliban rule, in which women's rights were shattered, the biggest challenge to women and girls in Afghanistan is 'the fact that they are inhumanely suppressed.'

'Women in Afghanistan mostly do not have the right to make any decisions for themselves, not even when it comes to choosing their life partner,' she says.

Aryana's parents fled Afghanistan when she was a teenager, and she has lived in London since. Do we take things for granted in the Western World? Aryana nods. 'The fact I have the freedom to go shopping or for a coffee without the fear of being killed is definitely a blessing'but she remains an advocate for Afghanistan feminism, a movement which is alive and booming but rarely reported on.

As a high profile woman, she's aware of the relative privilege that position offers her. In Afghanistan it's difficult for women to appear on TV because most TV stations are run by male gatekeepers (with the exception of Zan TV, the country's first ever women-run TV station).

'In my case, because of my following and because of the fact that I would generate more audience for the TV stations, I get approached to appear on various TV shows and interviews, which isn't the case for the average woman.'

With this knowledge in mind, her profile growing and a film about her life in the works, the singer is now even more determined to use her platform to give hope and strength to women in Afghanistan.

'Women in Afghanistan are primarily treated as secondary to men' she says, 'we are suppressed, abused — physically and emotionally — and treated no lesser than prisoners in their own homes. An artist like myself plays a crucial role in restoring hope for people and to provide them a ray of light for a better tomorrow.'