Iran International
Rap has moved from the margins to the spotlight in Iran, where it is being promoted on streaming platforms, entertainment shows and Instagram feeds tied to state interests and seen by millions.
To many viewers it looks like a cultural opening: a genre long associated with underground resistance now visible on mainstream screens.
But researcher and artist Siavash Rokni, a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University in Montreal who studies Iranian youth culture, pop music and the communication dynamics of social movements, argues that that the reality is more complicated.
“It is a public relations performance,” he said. “It is fooling a lot of people, and we need to stop being fooled by it.”
Rokni has followed the evolution of Iran’s rap scene across five generations. He sees the new appetite for rap not as legalization but domestication, turning underground culture into something profitable and controllable.
Entertainment shows and “normal” rappers
One of the most watched programs in this space is BaZia, hosted by a former Iranian state television personality now living in Turkey. According to Rokni, the show’s guest selection and narratives suggest an ongoing connection with Iran.
“Technically speaking, he is no longer connected to the system,” Rokni said. “But the way he chooses his guests shows there is a connection.”
The rappers appearing on BaZia help normalize a particular type of rap that is not inclusive of all aspects of this cultural practice. Many of the same rappers featured on BaZia are now set to appear in a new rap-themed program hosted by him called GANG. Rokni says it shows how this was part of a larger plan to create momentum for the new show while normalizing a particular narrative of regime approved rap.
The narrative, Rokni said, “comes very slowly” through a sequence of interviews. Artists describe performing abroad but wanting to return. Producers talk about the economic advantage of bringing rap back while being able to control the content.
Money, control and aesthetics
Much of Iran’s music economy is in the hands of a profit-minded clique, Rokni said.
“The people who are running this oligarchical capitalism are connected to the Islamic Republic,” he said. “They just want to make cash.”
He stressed that the motivation is not necessarily ideological. Many simply benefit from the system’s structures.
The appearance of rap on screens has been accompanied by pressure and arrests behind the scenes. In early October at least five rappers and a composer were detained in Tehran and Shiraz, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran.
Security forces raided homes, seized phones and recording equipment and transferred the men to detention.
Within days videos appeared on their Instagram accounts with shaved heads and visible tattoos, apologizing on camera. Lawyers told CHRI the accounts had been taken over by cyber police.
One of the most high profile cases remains Toomaj Salehi, whose lyrics became an anthem of the Women Life Freedom movement.
He was arrested, abused in detention, sentenced to death, released on bail and then rearrested after publicly describing his treatment. Supporters say he is targeted because he refuses to leave Iran or be silent.
Female rappers face even greater constraints. Iran bans solo female singers from performing publicly or releasing their own vocals, forcing artists into exile or underground spaces. Studios refused to record them and venues were raided for illegal performances.
Why normalize rap at all?
Rokni traces the logic back to then Iranian president Mohammad Khatami era when the government offered small cultural openings to create a sense of possibility.
“You free some cultural restrictions and reconcile with the people,” he said. “You give hope. And that can be taken away very easily.”
He called this strategy dishonest. Licensing and televised satire, he said, do not signal reform. They are tools for narrative management.
Oppression, he argued, is often brief.
“They put a lid on it,” he said. “But the program starts after that.”
The backlash against licensed rappers, especially those connected to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, has been emotional. Some consider state approved albums a betrayal. Others see economic survival.
Rokni believes the solution is parallel economies, enabling musicians to make money without going through state linked producers or licensing offices.
“Do it yourself,” he said. He pointed to artists who built audiences through Instagram and streaming platforms.
In today’s Iran rap carries two meanings. One version is polished, licensed and safe. The other remains underground created by musicians who refuse to compromise.
Both exist at once but only one is protected.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.
