[Marxism] Iran's Bob Dylan

[Louis Proyect]

NY Times, September 1, 2007
Iran’s Dylan on the Lute, With Songs of Sly Protest
By NAZILA FATHI

TEHRAN

HE plays the setar, a traditional Persian lute, and is a master of 
classical Persian literature and poetry. But the sounds he draws from 
the instrument, along with his deep voice and his playful but subtly 
cutting lyrics about growing up in an Islamic state, have made Mohsen 
Namjoo the most controversial, and certainly the most daring, figure in 
Persian music today.

Some call him a genius, a sort of Bob Dylan of Iran, and say his 
satirical music accurately reflects the frustrations and disillusionment 
of young Iranians. His critics say his music makes a mockery of Persian 
classical and traditional music as he constantly blends it with Western 
jazz, blues and rock.

Mr. Namjoo, 31, is a singer, composer and musician, but most of all, his 
fans say, he is a great performer.

“I wanted to save Persian music,” he said in an interview at one of his 
studios in Tehran. “It does not belong to the present time and cannot 
satisfy the younger generation. The fact is that Persian music is very 
close to other styles, and it is possible to mix in other styles with a 
little shrewdness.”

His blending of Western and Persian music produces unexpected moments 
that jar the traditionalists but are thrilling to his fans, who are 
mostly young artists and intellectuals. His music sounds Persian, but 
the melodies take away the melancholy that often suffuses classical 
Persian music.

But it is Mr. Namjoo’s lyrics, his fans say, that make his music so 
important. He sings old Persian poetry, such as works by the 
13th-century mystic poet Rumi or the 14th-century poet Hafiz, with its 
connotations of love and lust. But with his mastery of Persian 
literature, he is able to write his own lyrics into the accepted forms, 
adding layers of meaning.

“The first time I listened to his music, I found it unexpected,” said 
Mahsa Vahdat, a 33-year-old singer. “It started with a laugh for me and 
ended with a cry. His music and his lyrics express the bitter situation 
of my generation, and they represent the society we live in.”

Defying Iran’s cultural police, he does not shy away from contemporary 
issues.

“What belongs to us is an apologetic government,” he sings in a song 
called “Neo-Kanti.” “What belongs to us is a losing national team.” 
Those are references to the widespread disappointment with the 
government of the former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, and the 
constant losses of Iran’s soccer teams.

“What belongs to us, maybe, is the future,” he adds, in a voice that is 
more resigned than hopeful.

In another popular song he sings, “One morning you wake up and realize 
that you are gone by the wind, there is no one around you and a few more 
of your hairs have gone gray, your birthday is a mourning ceremony again.”

After throwing in an unexpected Western melody, he goes on in a lower 
voice, saying, “that you are born in Asia is called the oppression of 
geography, you are up in the air and your breakfast has become tea and a 
cigarette.”

Atabak Elyassi, a musician and a professor of music at the Music College 
at Art University in Tehran, said there was protest and satire in Mr. 
Namjoo’s music. “In the meantime, it is very Iranian,” he said, “because 
he constantly points to issues that are about the lives of Iranians.”

MR. NAMJOO was raised in the religious city of Mashhad in northeastern 
Iran, where he started learning classical Persian music when he was 12.

As he grew older, he said, he listened to Western music and became 
interested in Jim Morrison, Eric Clapton and the Irish pop singer Chris 
de Burgh. He read philosophy and Persian literature, and developed a 
fondness for a strain of modern Persian poetry that stresses phonetics 
over the meanings of words.

But what changed his approach more than anything, he said, was his 
experience in the theater. When he was admitted to the University of 
Fine Art in 1994, he was told that he had to wait a year before starting 
classes. So he decided to pass the time studying theater.

“A musical instrument is a medium for a musician to play music,” he 
said. “So is the voice of a singer — it is like a medium to sing through 
it. But neither of them is involved in building relations with a living 
creature.

“But when I studied theater I learned to connect with my audience, and 
that was when my poems changed,” he said.

It is hard to gauge Mr. Namjoo’s popularity, for he has come of age in a 
time of intense pressure on Iranian music.

Most music was banned after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with only 
religious and revolutionary songs deemed appropriate. To this day, women 
are not allowed to sing. Over time the restrictions were eased, first on 
classical Iranian music and then, in the mid-1990s, on pop music. But 
after the election in 2005 of Iran’s current, conservative president, 
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, music came under a cloud once again.

The authorities canceled a concert of rock and jazz music in Tehran in 
July. In August, more than 200 people who attended a private rock 
concert in Karaj, 30 miles west of Tehran, were arrested. The public 
prosecutor in Karaj, Ali Fallahi, called the concert “satanic,” local 
news agencies reported.

Mr. Namjoo himself has not yet been able to give a live, public 
performance, and he has not received a government license to sell his 
CDs. But he is able to perform privately, his CDs are sold on the black 
market and, in an inexplicable twist, his songs are played on Iranian 
radio stations. As of early August, his manager said, 1.6 million people 
had heard his music on YouTube.

In July, he did receive an invitation to a government ceremony to sing a 
few songs in praise of Imam Ali, the martyred son-in-law of the Prophet 
Muhammad and the man whom Shiite Muslims consider Muhammad’s legitimate 
successor. Yet, the room was filled with artists and musicians, rather 
than government officials.

BECAUSE of his cutting-edge style, Mr. Namjoo is under another kind of 
pressure. Most classical musicians are purists, insisting that the music 
not be altered in any fashion. They dismiss Mr. Namjoo’s music as absurd 
because of the way he has incorporated Western influences.

If you take Iranian classical music on one side, and Western music on 
the other, said one critic, Reza Ismailinia, who runs a small art 
gallery in Tehran, “then I think Mr. Namjoo’s music is like a caricature 
in between, or a kind of fantasy.”

But many disagree with Mr. Ismailinia.

“I think he will be remembered as a courageous artist who opened a 
window toward creating something new and for going beyond traditional 
barriers,” said Alireza Samiazar, the former director the Contemporary 
Museum of Art in Tehran. “I think his contribution to our music will be 
great.”

Undeterred by the critics, Mr. Namjoo says his next ambition is to study 
music abroad.

“I want to be challenged and get acquainted with Western music,” he 
said. “I was accepted too easily here.”