Banned Iranian Musician Rajabian Returns, With The Help Of Grammy Winners

Iranian composer Mehdi Rajabian has defied the efforts of the Iranian authorities to silence him, by releasing a new album in collaboration with a string of prominent international musicians.

It Arrives, released on September 10, has had a difficult path. Rajabian is banned from working with other musicians in Iran, he can’t tour or release music locally and can’t even use professional music studios.

Instead, the 32-year-old turned to the internet to collaborate with numerous Grammy Award winners and nominees such as saxophonist Jeff Coffin, jazz pianist Taylor Eigsti, drummer M.B. Gordy, guitarist Daniel Ho, cellist Peter Jacobson, flautist Wouter Kellerman and violinist Curtis Stewart. Also on the album are singers Priya Darshini and Nicole Zuraitis.

“We did all the parts online, from musicians, studio recording, album art, mastering, everything you see in this project has been done over the internet,” he said.

Trying to collaborate with people thousands of miles away presents plenty of challenges, made worse by poor internet connections. “In Iran, the internet speed is very low and most of the applications are blocked and filtered, which made it much more difficult, especially for transferring large files,” said Rajabian.

There is also the ever-present risk that the authorities might come calling. Rajabian has been arrested multiple times for his artistic endeavors and in 2015 was sentenced to six years in prison. After spending two years behind bars, he went on a hunger strike for 40 days, lapsing into a coma. The authorities released him on parole, but he said three years of his sentence remain suspended. “They can easily send me back to jail,” he said.

He was again arrested in 2020, following the release of his album Middle Eastern, which was part of a project involving female singers and dancers.

“You are under pressure in several ways. These pressures are both mental and physical and cause the destruction of the work of art,” said Rajabian. “As a result you must produce a magnificent work of art. What is finally produced is a work that overcomes great difficulties.”

The sustained and unwanted attention from the authorities has not stopped his creative process and he released another album, Coup of Gods, in 2021.

“After the production of the previous album, I thought that I would never be able to produce music again,” said Rajabian. “It really makes me proud to work with the most important musicians in the world. If it wasn’t for their help and persistence, I would never have been able to produce music.”

While some music is allowed in Iran, many artists are driven underground.

“Any artist who has a platform has definitely given in to censorship. and has agreed to produce artwork within the framework of censorship. People like me definitely do not and have not given in to this framework,” said Rajabian.

“We are living a hard and sad life, a life where we are struggling just to survive. I believe that an artist should be a fighter. He should know prison, solitary confinement, hunger strike, torture… and not be afraid. But his work of art should be philosophical. This time I tried to use more variety of colors in the album, unlike the previous album. Maybe this anger and loneliness of mine has reached happy colors.”