Political Rap Songs Made in Diaspora

Last week, I finally watched No One Knows About Persian Cats by Bahman Ghobadi, a banned and controversial Iranian film about the underground music in the late 2000s. I was around 9-10 years old when it was released on the internet. The illegal circulation of the film caused a major mess at the time, given the names involved. One of them was the famous rapper Hichkas, who not only acts in the movie, but also performs one of his very political songs about Tehran’s political climate at that time. For context, the late 2000s were the moment that Iran was going through an economic and ideological chaos thanks to the then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who later played a crucial role against the green movement, the mass imprisonment, and political executions in 2010. He was very close to Supreme Leader Khamenei as well. That period was one of the darkest times for Iranians who care about freedom of speech and art. I think Ghobadi did a good job demonstrating the essence of that period in…