When Toomaj Salehi released his track “Soorakh Moosh” (Rathole) in the summer of 2021, it seemed surreal that a rapper situated in Iran would publish such a risky song. The song’s radical lyrics foretold the end of the Islamic Republic in blunt terms.

Bigger names before him had not dared spell out insurrectionist words in Rap-e Farsi,[1] even years after they had left the country. The country’s once vibrant underground rap music scene had been muted for nearly a decade by the state’s politics of forced emigration, securitization, and intimidation and had failed to respond to critical political events.[2] Now, suddenly, Toomaj emerged from this silence to foresee the end of the state and to warn regime sympathizers to hide:

Freedom is expensive? Fine, the free will give their lives
Remember only blood washes away blood
[…]
Take from me the good news of a tomorrow with vengeance

In many ways, Toomaj’s track marked a watershed moment for discourses about the Islamic Republic, a moment that harnessed increasingly loud regime change voices from within Iran and the diaspora and amplified them. His music was a prophetic voice of protest, heralding the avalanche of rage and defiance that followed a year later with the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising.[3]

Several decades of attempts at political reforms, the crushing defeat of the 2009 Green Movement, subsequent economic devastation caused by extreme U.S. sanctions and government corruption, a lack of state accountability, social repression, and hopelessness had led to this moment, accompanied by online campaigns such as نه ـ به ـ جمهوری ـ اسلامی # (# No to Islamic Republic) and براندازم # (#I want an overthrow), as well as other high-profile acts such as the 2019 letters by activists demanding the resignation of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.[4]

Not too long ago, diasporic Iranians who identified with liberal, anti-war politics viewed the “regime change discourse” with enormous disdain. “Regime change”—justified in sublime democratic terms—was the mantra of the George W. Bush administration that had wrought devastation on Iraq and years of insecurity and human disaster on the wider Middle East. And when the godfathers of Rap-e Farsi rhymed, they often rapped against war and great power politics in tracks like Yas’s “My Identity,” or raised high Iran’s flag like in Hichkas’s “A Bunch of Soldiers.”

Not that they didn’t criticize the state—far from it, especially after 2009. One of Iran’s first female rappers Salome MC rapped against solitary confinement and censorship. Bahram wrote a cutting “Letter to the President” and Hichkas envisioned “A Good Day Will Come.” But regime change and downfall were not part of the discourse—not even in underground rap music.

By 2018 or so the mood had shifted. The 2019 gas price hike triggered protests that engulfed 29 of Iran’s 31 provinces, during which government forces killed more than 200 people. The only songs to respond to the events came from abroad. The now London-based rapper Hichkas published an austere piece of spoken rage set to minimal music titled “They’re Clenching Their Fist”: the album cover was a long blood-drenched list of all the protestors who had been killed by security forces. Referring to the state’s unprecedented week-long internet blackout, Hichkas rapped, “They cage the whole country and say we have no prisoners here.” Pointing to the economic destitution in Iran, he added, “They stripped everyone naked and say why is your dress not Islamic?”

As regime change discourse gained momentum, certain segments of organized Iranian opposition groups abroad excluded and intimidated Iranians they deemed “regime apologists.” The National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a lobby group in Washington D.C. that has worked for two decades to promote better U.S.-Iran relations, was branded as the principal handmaiden of the Islamic Republic in the United States.[5] In these toxic environments, Iran experts and journalists who offered nuanced reports and analyses of the country were disproportionately targeted, especially the women among them. This terminology seeped into everyday communication in Persian language social media, so that even within families and other communities people launched accusations of being regime apologists at each other. Regime change discourse cultivated in alt-right-adjacent online spaces bled into Iran too, so much so that Toomaj channeled this discourse in his track “Rathole,” calling out NIAC and referencing some of these targeted personas as apologists.[6]

At the same time, cross-national flows of anti-regime discourse energized one another, manifesting in the birth of a “global Iran,” as Asef Bayat called it,[7] with increasingly more daring stances against the state. Following a number of Toomaj’s radical tracks including “Normal” and “Turkmenchay,” other rappers in Iran went explicit in their criticisms of the regime. The Arab rapper Behrad Alikonari from Iran’s Khuzestan province exposed the hypocrisy of officials in “President Behrad;” the Kurdish-Iranian rapper Saman Yasin rhymed painful lines about his torture in detention, adding “I’m a revolutionary, but an advocate for peace.” Salehi, Alikonari, and Yasin were all detained and languish in prison still, charged with the capital crime of “spreading corruption on earth” (mofsed fel arz). All three men face execution.

Not just in Iran but across borders rappers took the cue. The rapper Justina, a recent émigré to Sweden, collaborated with Toomaj on “Shallaq” (Whip). In her searing rhymes, she points to the slogan used by Islamists soon after the 1979 Revolution, “Yā rusari yā tusari” (either a headscarf or a smack on the head) and pushes back with “Our right is not a smack on the head, I will no longer submit to this forced headscarf.” Then she warns, “My hair will whip you in the face.” The Europe-based hip-hop collective Moltafet had produced ferocious pieces around the same time as Toomaj with Fadaei’s “Sarneguni” (Downfall). Then, in the midst of protests, they released Shapur’s “Marg bar kolle nezam” (Death to the Whole System), in which he relishes “Great, the smell of burning, it must be the mullahs grilling.” Across transnational Rap-e Farsi borders, the regime change tenor had risen.

Uprisings in preceding years hadn’t compelled the kind of vocal unity that arose during 2022’s Woman, Life, Freedom protests. What distinguished this uprising from multiple post-revolutionary uprisings was its truly collective nature. All of Iran’s provinces rose in protest, all segments of society seemed to be engaged: this was reflected in the ethnicities of the rappers too. Bayat’s notion of a “global Iran” points inward as well to the uniting of Iran’s diverse populations in protest. This became readily evident in protest chants as the Azaris expressed solidarity with the Kurds and the Kurds declared their unity with the Baluch.

If Toomaj’s 2021 tracks that I opened with above were an indication of the revolutionary politics yet to come, the stunning “Khanevadegi 2” (Familial 2) track released six months before Mahsa Zhina Amini’s killing signaled the internally “global” nature of the revolts. Produced by 39 rappers from all of Iran’s 31 provinces, this track featured nearly all the languages and dialects of Iran and showcased the landmarks and costumes of each region. Its beautiful diversity worked as an antidote to the comparatively homogenous Islamic culture and ethos imposed by the state.

As evidenced by the tracks mentioned here, Iranian hip-hop of recent years has emerged into the social scene with its mighty diction and political forthrightness. Independent Rap-e Farsi as a music genre never received an official permit from ministries of the Islamic Republic. But it was not muted after all. It was recharging and collecting itself, gathering its multitudes and finding its resolve. No other modern genre has mirrored and boasted Iran’s truly diverse human mix, through its masterful rhymes and rhythms, as has Iranian hip-hop. And like the country’s political minorities—women, Baluchis, Kurds, and others—this most repressed genre rose up to become the most outspoken voice against ruling injustices, standing up for everyone and their hopes for a better Iran.

Notes

[1] Rap-e Farsi, which translates as “Persian-language rap,” is the eponymous music genre that grew out of a budding hip hop movement in the early 2000s in Iran, at first displayed on then newly launched 021-music.com rap music website. See also Nahid Siamdoust, “Rap-e Farsi.” By now it is a transnational genre that rappers inside and outside of Iran contribute to, one that includes rhymes in other languages spoken in Iran, such as Kurdish, Arabic, Baluchi, Azari, and Gilaki, to name a few.

[2] See Nahid Siamdoust “Silence Falls on Iran’s Protest Movement,” in Foreign Affairs, 6 Jan 2020.

[3] See Attali’s discussion of music as foreshadowing new social formations in Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music (University of Minnesota Press, 1984).

[4] See Maryam Ansari “Iranian Activists Demand Khamenei Step Down,” in Deutsche Welle (DW), 16 Aug 2019.

[5] See, for example, Daniel Block “I’ll Burn You Alive,” in Politico Magazine, 22 April 2023.

[6] See Nahid Siamdoust, “Down the ‘Rathole’: How a Rapper Channels Iran Regime Change Discourse,” in Iran Source, Atlantic Council, 12 Oct 2021.

[7] See “A New Iran Has Been Born – A Global Iran,” Interview with Asef Bayat, New Lines Magazine, 26 Oct 2022.