Saifullah Zaman, known professionally as State of Bengal, was born on 17 April 1965, in East Pakistan and later moved to London at age eight. He began his music career by setting up the State of Bengal group in 1987 after visiting Bangladesh and interacting with traditional folk musicians. Zaman's breakthrough came when his tracks "Flight IC408" and "Chittagong Chill", produced with Matt Mars, were featured on the Anokha – Soundz of the Asian Underground compilation. This led to his discovery by Björk, for whom he opened during her Homeogenic world tour and remixed the track "Hunter". State of Bengal released several albums including Visual Audio (1998), Tana Tani (2004) with Paban Das Baul, and Skip-Ij (2007). He also founded Betelnut Records. Zaman died on May 19, 2015, from a suspected heart attack.
