Persian Popular Music Scenes in California

MUSIC, MIGRATION, AND POLITICS OF BELONGING: PERSIAN POPULAR MUSIC SCENES IN CALIFORNIA

SHABNAM GOLI

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2019

To my soulmate, Alireza, whose endless love made this possible, and to our Liam who showed us a whole new face of love

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Completing this PhD would not be possible without the kind help of many individuals who dedicated their valuable time and support to the development of this research. I would like to thank the informants who participated in this study and/or helped me establish myself as a researcher and gain the trust of members of the Iranian community, particularly the musicians. I extend my greatest thanks to Andy Madadian, Shari Rezaee, Nazy Kaviani, Mohsen Namjoo,

Shadi and Ardalan from Eendo band, Ardalan Sarfaraz, and Guita Banan.

I am eternally grateful to the University of Florida School of Music and College of the

Arts faculty and staff, in particular School Director, Kevin Orr who saw merit in my work and offered financial support for my graduate studies and academic travels over the past nearly eight years. I am also exteremly thankful to Laura Robertson, Leslie Odom, and Angela Williams whose gracious assistance made working remotely from California during the past three years possible. I would also like to thank University of Florida Office of Research for awarding me the doctoral research travel grant that provided me financial assitance in the final stages of the field research. The generous financial support enabled me to take fieldwork trips in California, attend a wide range of events and concerts, get involved with the community, and collect data. I am also forever thankful to Jeremy Frusco who said hi on the first day of school and became a brother over these years. Jeremy read hundred pages of my work and contributed to the development of this study with his critical questions.

My deepest appreciation goes to my chief advisor, Larry Crook, who guided my intellectual growth during my graduate studies at the University of Florida. Professor Crook saw potential in me and offered me a chance to work hard for my dreams; an opportunity I had never been given before. His valuable feedback and constructive criticism empowered me to find my own voice and place in this research. I am perpetually thankful to him and will always do my

best to make him proud. I am also exteremly thankful to my doctoral committee members; Marit

Ostebo who compassionately offered not only her scholarly but also emotional support during the hard stages of working on this study particularly after the Travel Ban and during my pregnancy. I would also like to thank Silvio dos Santos whose wisdom and critical comments along with his calmness and kindness set a role model for me in my academic life. Many thanks also go to Welson Tremura whose musicianship contributed to this study and my musical growth as a beginner singer with Jacare Brazil.

Finally, I would love to extend my greatest gratitude to my best friend, Alireza Pourreza, whose contribution to this project (and my personal growth in general) has been enourmous. I am forever indebted to Alireza for believing in me and my ability to succeed and for encouraging me in the face of all hardships and failures. I am proud to be married to a person who is committed to the empowerment of not only his wife but all women. This PhD would remain a dream if it was not for his most passionate support and endless love.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 4

LIST OF TABLES ...... 8

LIST OF FIGURES ...... 9

ABSTRACT ...... 11

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 13

Review of Literature ...... 22 Iranian Diaspora ...... 22 Music and Migration ...... 24 Theoretical Framework ...... 30 Identity ...... 30 Music and Identity ...... 31 Transnational Identity ...... 31 Ethnic Minorities, Migrants and Strategic Boundary Making ...... 33 Bourdieu’s Concept of Taste ...... 34 Diaspora, Music Scene and Musical Community ...... 35 Methodology ...... 37 The Metaphor of the Field: Fieldwork vs. Field Experience ...... 39 Interviews and Conversations...... 42 Virtual fieldwork ...... 44 Performance as Research Technique ...... 46 Musical and Textual Analysis ...... 48 Methodological Obstacles ...... 49 Discourse Analysis ...... 52 Significance and Contribution ...... 54 Plan of Dissertation ...... 55

2 IRANIAN MIGRATION AND THE FORMATION OF A DIASPORA ...... 57

Historical Background of the Iranian Migration...... 57 Diaspora ...... 70 Transnationalism and Diaspora ...... 74 Conclusion ...... 84

3 IRANIAN POPULAR MUSIC SCENES IN EXILE ...... 92

Theoretical Framework: Music Scene ...... 95 Description of the Scenes: MLA and MM ...... 101

Description of Mainstream (‘Musiqi-ye losanjelesi,’ MLA) Scene ...... 102 History of Persian Popular Music...... 103 Persian Popular Music: Definition, Roots, Migration, and Transformations ...... 103 Description of the Alternative Music (Musiqi-ye Mostaghel, MM) Scene ...... 113 Alternative Music as a Category ...... 114 The Sound of Music: Genres, Styles, and Distinctions between the Scenes ...... 119 Commercialization, Commodification and the Notion of Autonomy ...... 122 Conclusion ...... 124

4 ETHNICITY, IDENTITY AND POLITICS OF BELONGING IN US-BASED PERSIAN POPULAR MUSIC SCENES ...... 138

Musical Value and the Concept of Taste ...... 143 Ethnic Boundary Making ...... 151 Conclusion ...... 155

5 REQUIEMS FOR THE MOTHERLAND: NOSTALGIA, HOMELAND LONGING AND BELONGING IN EXILIC PERSIAN POPULAR MUSIC ...... 158

Nostalgia in Popular Culture ...... 159 Nostalgia in Exilic Iranian Arts ...... 160 Nostalgia: History, Meaning and Typology ...... 163 Nostalgia in Exilic Persian Popular Music ...... 167 Nostalgia in Musiqi_Ye Losanjelesi (MLA) ...... 167 Homesick or Sick of Home: Nostalgia in Musiqi-Ye Mostaghel (MM) ...... 180 Conclusion ...... 188

6 EPILOGUE ...... 196

APPENDIX

LYRICS ...... 204

LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 212

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 233

LIST OF TABLES

Table page

2-1 Different Waves of Iranian Migration...... 89

3-1 An overview of musical and extra-musical features of MLA and MM ...... 129

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure page

1-1 An image from the jam session, photo credit goes to Alireza Pourreza...... 56

2-1 Iranian Immigrants Admitted to the United States, Canada, Germany, the UK and Sweden: 1961 to 2005, (Tavakol 2012: 164)...... 90

2-2 Iranian-Born Immigrants Admitted to the United States, 1970 to 2004. Source: Source: US Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, 1970-2004 (Hakimzadeh and Dixon 2006:2-3)...... 90

2-3 Nonimmigrant Visas Issued to Iranian Nationals, 2000 to 2005 (Hakimzadeh and Dixon 2006: 3)...... 91

3-1 Graph explaining different branches of Iranian/Persian music in the US...... 130

3-2 Susan and Aghasi on the cover of Zan-e Rooz magazine (possibly late 1960s), captured from YouTube...... 131

3-3 Susan’s commemoration ceremony in Los Angeles; undated video, possibly the late 1990s. Image captured from YouTube...... 131

3-4 Andy Madadian performs in Mehregan celebration, San Jose CA, September 7, 2017. Photo by the author...... 132

3-5 Norooz Event in San Francisco Union Square, March 3rd, 2019, supported by DAC. Photo by the author...... 132

3-6 Farhang Foundation Norooz Event at UCLA, March 2018. Source: Farhang Foundation Instagram Page...... 133

3-7 Farhang Foundation Norooz Event 2019 (1398) Banner...... 133

3-8 Sattar’s performance in Cabaret Tehran, November 17, 2017, photo by the author...... 134

3-9 Belly dancer in Cabaret Tehran, November 17, 2017, photo by the author...... 134

3-10 Screenshots from Twitter. A) Ali Azimi’s Tweet sharing the news of his album release B) A fan’s Tweet sharing the GoFundMe link for Azimi’s supporters outside Iran C) Mohsen Namjoo Tweet...... 135

3-11 Erwin Khachikian and Friends’ gig in San Francisco, April 2018. Photo by the author...... 136

3-12 Sara Naieni’s performance in San Francisco, June 30, 2018. Photo by the author...... 136

3-13 Photos from Mohsen Namjoo’s Album Release in San Francisco (Central Stage), June 2, 2018. A) Namjoo performing a few songs from his new album, B) Namjoo signing his albums for his fans after the show, photos by the author...... 137

5-1 Image from “Hamkhooneh” by Hayedeh and Viguen captured from the video on YouTube...... 193

5-2 Image from “Parseh” by Darisuh captured from the video on YouTube...... 193

5-3 Image from “Daram Miram Be Tehran” by Andy Madadian Ft. La Toya Jackson captured from the video on YouTube...... 194

5-4 Image from “Jãn-e Man” by Moein captured from the video on YouTube...... 194

5-5 Image from “Khat Bekesh” by Mohsen Namjoo captured from the video on YouTube...... 195

6-1 From right to left, Liam Pourreza, Andy Madadian, Shabnam Goli, and Alireza Pourreza...... 203

Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

MUSIC, MIGRATION, AND POLITICS OF BELONGING: PERSIAN POPULAR MUSIC SCENES IN CALIFORNIA

Shabnam Goli

December 2019

Chair: Larry Crook Major: Music

This ethnographic study examines processes of identity (re)construction and negotiation, expressions of migration experience and narratives of homeland and nationness in two distinct, yet closely interrelated, Persian popular music scenes of Musiqi-ye Losanjelesi (“Music of Los

Angeles,” MLA) and Musiqi-ye Mostaghel (“Alternative Music,” MM) in the United States.

Informed by post-structuralist and postmodern readings of identity as dialogic, shifting and ambivalent, I argue that the complex network of local, translocal and virtual scenes of Persian popular music in diaspora has formed significant sites for the (re)production and expression of multiple individual and collective migrant identities. Engaging with musical activities in the scenes, Iranians conduct strategic acts of boundary making, negotiate their position and relationship with the host country and reflect not only socio-cultural capital and political stance, but also conceptions of Iran and Iranianness. While MLA has propagated an essentialist view of

Iran and Iranianness celebrating a combination of pre-Islamic Persian culture and Western, urban, and secular set of values, the emergent translocal MM has introduced more fluid, pluralistic, and transnational notions of Iranianness.

Addressing the neglect of the MM scene in Iranian diaspora studies and investigating multifaceted functions of music in shaping narratives of homeland and migration for people with

common backgrounds but dissimilar experiences of displacement, I argue that music, as not only a reflective but also a constitutive factor in the enactment of identity, empowers migrants to engage in complex processes of (dis)identification. MLA and MM speak to two prominent waves of Iranian migration in different socio-political climates in home and host countries during the

1980s and 2000s. Drawing on Wimmer’s theory of boundary making and through multi-site ethnomusicological fieldwork research, interviews and participant-observation engagement with the community, I contend that music’s fluidity over metaphorical and material borders enable it to serve as an influential cultural sign for the (re)(de)construction of migrant identities and an advantageous tool for strategic negotiations of boundaries in transnational contexts. The examination of MM in relation to MLA challenges monolithic readings of the Iranian diaspora as an ethnic minority with a shared origin, collective identity and bounded culture.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Overwhelmed by the large of number of reputable Iranian artists and musicians in the audience and stressed about my limited musical skills as a beginner drummer, I sat behind the drumset in the sitting room in Shadi and Ardalan’s (the musician and artist couple from the

Eendo band) house. It was a cozy, dimly lit room packed with musical instruments including an upright piano, a keyboard, and a microphone and sound system. The walls were covered with posters, paintings and photography by the couple or major Iranian artists such as Abbas

Kiarostami (critically acclaimed, internationally renowned Iranian film director) whose son,

Ahmad, was also in the room. The sound of music was coming from every corner. In the backyard, a group of people were sitting on the grass listening to Narges Jajarmi play her accordion joyfully and passionately. As people were getting together, Arian began singing

“Stand by Me.” Ardalan Payvar played the keyboards, Kasra Saboktakin was on the bass, and

Mohammad Talani on the guitar (Figure 1-1). We played a number of jazz, rock and blues songs as different musicians joined and left the band to give everyone a chance to play.

After the last song as I was putting down the drumsticks, I heard Shadi chanting loudly

“Drummer-e Dokhtar Darim!” (we have a girl drummer). Soon the room was filled with the chant. Many people came to greet me and share their kind words of encouragement and support afterwards. Famous Iranian singer Hamed Nikpay stopped me as I was leaving the party and said

“Shabnam don’t go! This guy (pointing to the drummer replacing me) has no sense of rhythm,” and laughed loudly. I knew I was not the only drummer, definitely not the best, in the room. But everybody was very nice, supportive, and encouraging. For the first time after nearly a decade of life as an Iranian immigrant in the US, I felt a sense of belonging to the group. I found the way they reflected on their position as Iranian immigrants and artists very familiar. What people

talked about was quite similar to my own and many of my peers’ concerns. This has not always been the case with the highly diverse community of Iranians in the US (from fieldnotes, October

2018).

This ethnographic account offers critical insights on the heterogeneity of the Iranian community and the diversity of its musical activities in the US. Unlike typical Iranian parties which are occasions for dancing to Persian dance tunes, the described gathering was a social event for people (a group of nearly fifty individuals who were mostly artists) to socialize while listening to different styles of live music. Instead of being highly protective of their stardom and celebrity status, famous musicians at the party were very approachable and thoughtful. The young generation of Iranian alternative musicians, who left Iran in the past decade, demonstrate a variety of differences from the mainstream LA-based Persian popular music stars of the 1980s not only in their musical outputs but also in their socio-political stances. As an ethnomusicology graduate student and a young Iranian migrant in the US, I paid much attention to complex expressions of migration and notions of Iran and Iranianness in the Iranian diaspora. This dissertation is the outcome of the examination of conceptions of Iran and Iranianness in exilic

Persian popular music among Iranians in diaspora from the perspective of a migrant of the most recent wave of Iranian migration.

I was born and raised in Mashhad—Iran’s second largest and most religious city—during

Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. My parents, although from traditional families, were Western popular music enthusiasts. Growing up in early post-revolutionary Iran, I witnessed how my parents struggled to circumvent the state’s ban on popular music to introduce my siblings and me to a wide range of music including Iranian popular music produced in Los Angeles. While the Iranian government had prohibited consumption and production of all forms of Western and Persian

popular music between 1980s to the late 1990s, my parents reached out to friends in diaspora, endangered themselves by purchasing black market cassettes/CDs smuggled into Iran from

Pakistan and Afghanistan, and installed a big satellite receiver dish to evade the state’s ban and enrich our lives with not only the sound of Queen, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Madonna, and

Michael Jackson, but also LA-based Iranian pop/Persian popular music.

During the 1980s (1360s Solar year, referred to as Dahe Shast; the decade of the sixties),

Musiqi-ye Losanjelesi (MLA) was a staple of life in Iran. Our drives from Mashhad to the north of Iran to the Caspian Sea, birthday parties, cultural festivities such as Persian New Year and nearly all family gatherings were filled with the voice of LA-based pop icons including Hayedeh,

Viguen, Ebi, Leila Forouhar, Andy, Martik, and Shahram Shabpareh. As early as I learned about the revolution and how it had changed my parents’ lives, I learned about a highly-appreciated music scene existing far away from Iran. Even as a kid, I was deeply upset for the expelled stars who could never return to Iran. I vividly remember asking my mother about this impossibility of return and loss of homeland expressed in Hayedeh’s songs. The question “If they love Iran so much, why have they left?” became a key aspect of my own existence (later as an immigrant) and a foundation for my academic inquiries three decades later.

Like many urban Iranian teenagers of the 1990s, my musical taste parted from my parents’ through access to music via the internet and MTV. As I developed an interest in

American rock and hip-hop, the ban on popular music ended inside Iran. With the emergence of rock bands in the undergrounds of Mashhad, I used my circle of friends to get involved in

“outlaw” musical activities. By the mid- 2000s, Iran’s alternative/underground music scene

(UM) had become the most prominent aspect of youth culture, bringing together the rebellious youth who rejected all sorts of mainstream Persian pop including MLA as well as Persian folk

and traditional musics. In the face of such discontinuities, it was my nostalgic love for MLA as it connected me to the past, to my young parents and my childhood along with my teenage binding to Iran’s underground music that shaped the basis for this dissertation which brings the two distinct scenes of MLA and MM together.

After the controversial presidential election of Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad in 2009 and the government’s harsh suppression of protestors, many young Iranians sought different ways to leave the country in search of a better life. The US and Europe-imposed sanctions began to cripple the economy and led to increasing unemployment rate, market instability, and devastating inflation. My husband and I were successful in moving to the United States in pursuit of higher education. From risking our lives to acquire the single-entry US visa in Kabul in the summer of

2011 to impacts of controversial Iran nuclear negotiations, Trump’s victory in the presidential election and the Muslim Travel Ban, the story of our migration has had devastating lows and incredible highs.

My existential reflections, the turbulent experience of migration, the hostility many

Iranians confront and continue to struggle with, and the complexity of who we are as Iranians in

Trump’s America build the foundation for my musical and cultural questions in this dissertation.

Indeed, my dual displacement— an outlaw in Iran and an alien in the US— ignited my curiosity about the Iranian community. What are other Iranian immigrants’ experiences? How do we differ from or resemble the previous generation of migrants of the 1980s? Having criticized them for leading the revolution and then escaping the country, how do we perceive the exiles of the 1980s today as we belong to the same community of Iranians in the US? How do they see us as the

Children of the Revolution?

My engagement with the Iranian community in the US is multifaceted. During the past 7 years, I have attended a variety of cultural, social, and political events across the country as a member of the community and a musician. I have visited many US cities with largest Iranian populations, have attended some of the biggest Iranian gatherings such as the unveiling of the

Freedom Sculpture in Santa Monica Boulevard in 2017 (Hamilton 2017), and have been to a large number of Iranian businesses and restaurants in California, Florida, Virginia, Georgia,

Texas, Ohio, Colorado, and Washington DC. I have noticed a complex network of hierarchy separating people based on age, duration and type of migration, education, political and religious views, ethnicity and language. While I cannot speak for all, my observations and engagement with the community show that the two large groups of Iranian immigrants of the 1980s and

2000s criticize each other for a variety of political, social, and cultural reasons.

I soon realized that music plays a key role in shaping power relations within the community. MLA enthusiasts, mostly but not exclusively belonging to the first group, are ridiculed by the youth for their shallow taste of music and lack of ‘intellectual’ and ‘artistic’ appreciation. Alternative music (MM) fans also face marginalization as the mainstream Persian pop is still dominated by MLA and easy listening pop from inside of Iran. Such complex power relations and taste judgments and my critical questions about notions of nostalgia and

Iranianness in the modern-day US shape the building blocks of this musical and ethnographic investigation of the function of music in creating the experience of migration and (re)producing identity narratives.

Migration is an unsettling experience, marked by the fear of the unfamiliar and melancholic longing for the lost familiar. In a complex, tripartite relationship with the homeland, host society, and the larger immigrant community itself, migrants deal with multi-layered

identity issues on both individual and collective levels. In exile, cultural artefacts including literature, cinema, and music become salient sites for exilic expressions, cross-cultural interactions, and maintenance of linkages with the homeland. For Iranians, whose largest wave of migration to the United States initiated in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the Iran-Iraq war, popular music soon became a significant, public arena for expressions of homeland narratives, self-reflection, community building on the basis of commonly-shared sounds and values, and cultural exchanges in the new context.

With the second large influx of young Iranians starting in the mid-2000s, both the Iranian community and the Persian music scene witnessed diversification and transformation. In response to high rates of unemployment, a crippled economy, and socio-political oppressions following the controversial presidency of Ahmadinejad in Iran, a great number of Iranian millennials have moved to other countries (mainly in Europe and North America) in pursuit of higher education and enhanced life conditions. Known as the “brain drain” (Farãr-e Maghzhã),1 the sizable exodus of most brilliant Iranian youth has resulted in new notions of self, nationhood, community, and collective identity abroad. In the US, with the emergence of new sounds and expressions of self, a multiplicity of identities and notions of Iran have appeared, challenging monolithic readings of Iranianness as secular, Western, and elite which have been propagated by

Iranian exile media over the past forty years (Naficy 1993).

After four decades of Iranians’ largest influx in the US and with the re-appearance of a harsh anti-Iranian rhetoric in light of recent political changes, it is of great importance to sharpen our understanding of the Iranian community. The question of “who we are?” (Mostofi 2003) has become a fundamental subject of inquiry in not only Iranian studies but also wider studies of

1 In this study I use the “ã” sign to transilaterte the long vowel “a” as in “car.”

migration and its intersection with arts and culture. What is the function of Persian popular music in shaping and reflecting the varied experience of migration for Iranians in the US? What is the

Iranian community like and how does it achieve a collectivity in the face of increasing internal diversity? Most importantly, in what ways has the complex network of Persian music scenes served the community in the processes of identity construction and negotiation?

In this dissertation, I investigate the significance and function of exilic Persian popular music in reflecting and creating the experience of migration for the heterogeneous Iranian community in the US. Focusing on narratives of homeland, expressions of Iranianness, and processes of cross-cultural interaction as well as preserving and promoting the native culture in a hostile context, I examine US-based Persian popular music scenes to shed light on life experiences of the largest community of Iranians outside the homeland (Naficy 1993). Through intensive, multi-site ethnomusicological fieldwork in California, Florida, and Washington DC, and musical and textual analysis of exilic Persian popular music, I explore the function of music as a public site for expressions of self among Iranians who fled the turmoil of the regime change and destruction of an eight-year war in the 1980s and the political suppression and instabilities of

Ahmadinejad era in the 2000s.

At the outset, it is important to address the complex situation of music in Iran and distinguish different categories of Persian popular music. Currently, two different categories of

Persian popular music are produced inside Iran: 1) Officially-approved music (Mojãz) whose production and dissemination have been permitted by the government, 2) Underground/illegal music (Zirzamini/ gheir-e mojãz) which is produced, disseminated and consumed without the official permit and is considered illegal. Both categories draw on Westernized popular music, but

underground music is more diverse and includes various genres such as rock, hip hop, jazz, country, and fusion.

In diaspora, Persian music is produced by either pre-revolutionary and emergent stars concentrated in Los Angeles (known as musiqi-ye losanjelesi, hence thereof MLA) which used to be the capital of Iranian exilic popular culture, or by the young generation of post-revolutionary musicians who are scattered around the world (I refer to this music as “alternative music” or musiqi-ye mostaghel, hence thereof MM). Alternative music is recognized as opposed to mainstream/ produced by major labels (Fenster and Swiss 1999: 229-231) (further discussed in

Chapter 3).

Centering my research on Persian popular music scenes in California, I distinguish

Musiqi-ye Losanjelesi (MLA), produced by LA-based Iranian musicians and producers since the

1980s, from Musiqi-ye Mostaghel (alternative music, MM), the globally-scattered, youth- dominated, alternative scene. From the perspective of the alternative music, MM, I explore the two scenes’ dominant discourses of artistic and aesthetic value, notions of self and collectivity, homeland, and migration to cast light on multifarious processes of identity negotiation utilized by Iranians to thrive in a hostile host society. A music “scene,” as Sara Cohen remarks (1999:

239), refers to a group of people who share certain musical activities or taste. Unlike the related concepts of subculture and community, music scene is neither bounded nor geographically rooted. Despite being centered in the US due to the initial settlement of producers, both MLA and MM scenes are dynamic, mobile, and increasingly translocal and transnational. Borrowing

Sara Cohen’s concept of scene (1999) and Bennett and Peterson’s typology of local, translocal and virtual scenes (2004), I investigate MLA and MM scenes to explain the US Iranian diaspora, diasporic Iranians’ attempts to integrate into the new context and aspirations to retain and

recreate multifaceted notions of Iranianness. As I concentrate on two significant phases of modern Iranian migration to the United States (1980s and mid-2000s), I examine the ways MLA and MM resonate with different groups’ experiences of displacement in politically and socio- culturally distinct contexts. The examination of the music scenes, I claim, sheds crucial light on politics of belonging, identity negotiation, and socio-cultural integration of the community in the

US.

The remarkable community of high-status, well-educated, prospering Iranian migrants

(Bozorgmehr and Sabbagh1989) in the US—which has at times shown resentment toward not only Iranians but the larger Muslim population—serves as an illuminating case study for re- examining theories of identity, diaspora and hybridity (Cohen 1997; Hall 1990), transnationalism and migrant incorporation (Glick-Schiller 1992). Internal diversity, expulsion from the homeland and exclusion from the hostland create complex processes of self and collectivity negotiation.

The analysis of Iranian diaspora and its dynamic music scenes sharpens our understanding of human movements in the context of shifting conditions of the late modernity in light of the compression of space and time (Harvey 1989) and can inform our understanding of other, particularly similar, US migrant communities.

My broad research question is “What is the function of Persian popular music scenes in processes of identity construction, negotiation and reproduction among Iranian migrants in the

US?” My sub-questions to explore in different chapters include:

• How have music scenes (MLA and MM) and musical activities reflected and shaped Iranian migrants’ relationship with the homeland over the past four decades of exile? • What is the relationship between MLA and MM scenes and what does that tell us about the experience of migration among Iranians? • What is the role of music scenes and musical activities in constructing and negotiating nationness, a sense of community and collective identity among Iranians in diaspora?

Review of Literature

Iranian Diaspora

As a large and diverse community of exiles, students, and immigrants, the Iranian diaspora has been the subject of numerous multi-disciplinary studies including literature (Karim

2006; Motlagh 2008), women’s studies (Dallalfar 1994; Moghissi 1999), cinema and theater

(Naficy 2012; 2001), sociology (Bozorgmehr 1998; Mostofi 2003), and ethnomusicology

(Hemmasi 2010). While some have focused on countries with a visible Iranian immigrant population such as Sweden (Graham and Khosravi 1997), France (Nassehi-Behnam 2005), Japan

(Morita 2003), and Australia (Tenty and Houston 2013), the primary focus of this scholarship has been the community in the US as the largest population of Iranians outside the homeland.

Hamid Naficy has examined the community and its artistic and cultural products in light of socio-economic theories to develop new understandings of migration (1998). Mehdi

Bozorgmehr (2006) and George Sabagh (1988), Amy Malek (2006), and Nilou Mostofi (2003) approach the community as case studies to provide empirical data, reflect on the exilic existence, and test theories of sociology, diaspora and globalization studies. Recently with growing concern over the largest wave of Iranian brain drain to the West, more attention has been given to millennials’ migration, causes, effects and solutions (Chaichian 2012; Tavakol 2012).

Studies of Iranian diaspora’s musical activities are meager. Aitak Ajangzad’s study of music education among Iranians in diaspora (2013), Isra Yaghoubi’s master’s thesis on traditional Persian music in Irangeles (2013), Shafiei’s study of musical borrowings between

Persian classical music and jazz, Hemmasi (2010; 2017) and Steward’s (2017) studies of Persian popular music in exile, nationalism, and hybridity have lately emerged. Despite its influential and even hegemonic status, MLA has remained marginal in the studies of the Iranian diaspora.

Hamid Naficy’s study of Persian music videos in exile (1999), for instance, is just a part of his groundbreaking study of Iranian exile culture built on his theory of liminality. Focusing on the television industry as a dominant aspect of exilic culture and commerce and the function of music videos, Naficy argues music videos reflect the tensions of unequal social/economic relations and shape diasporic consciousness within the community. Created in a liminal space between the homeland and host society, music videos serve as sites for critiquing Iranian and

American societies and politics and expressing alternative views. Naficy’s analysis of popular music videos and the role they play in the transformation of “exilic to ethnic” (1998:64) as well as his attention to fluid, multiple diasporic identities inspired me to take a step further and examine the emergent MM scene. I examine the conflicts between values ascribed to and judgements of high- and low-brow musics and their corresponding producers and consumers.

The latest, most comprehensive ethnomusicological study of exilic Persian popular music is Farzaneh Hemmasi’s dissertation (2010) in which she studies Persian popular music in LA.

Hemmasi claims that Persian popular music produced in LA has two primary functions: 1) criticizing the new Iranian regime, and 2) representing and promoting “secular, sensual, and cosmopolitan” Iranianness which is outside the official Iranian culture. Focusing primarily on

MLA as it reflects the pre-revolutionary values while impacting the post-revolutionary Iran,

Hemmasi analyzes the transformation of MLA in LA. Hemmasi’s historical accounts, interviews and archival information are instrumental for this dissertation. Her approach toward understanding the role of MLA in Iran and diaspora inspired new questions about the meaning and position of MLA as it confronts competing forces of alternative musicians and a multiplicity of identities in translocal and virtual Persian music scenes. Focusing on the diaspora and the host

society, I aim to understand what roles MLA and MM play for Iranians in the US as they deal with the experience of displacement.

Neglecting the role of alternative musicians not only strengthens the hegemonic position of MLA, which has silenced and controlled the emergence of alternative musics and diversity of self-expressions but has also led to a lack of understanding of intra-communal power struggles, strategies of boundary making, and plurality of emerged identities. This study complements

Hemmasi’ dissertation in two ways; 1) rather than concentrating on the function of exile music in

Iran, I focus on the dialectical relationship between the growingly transnational MLA and translocal scene of MM and representation and negotiation of Iran and Iranianness within the

Iranian diaspora, 2) I pay close attention to expressions of migration experience and cross- cultural interaction with the host society and homeland belonging in traumatic times. Hemmasi’s gaze is on MLA and pre- and post-revolutionary Iran. My emphasis is on the diaspora itself and the multi-layered processes of individual and collective identity negotiation in a fluctuating and unstable host context and within bottom-up processes of globalization.

Music and Migration

Physically displaced from their native culture and emplaced in an unfamiliar setting, migrants form complex cultural domains in which arts and artefacts become crucial elements of identity construction and negotiation. As one of the widest spread cultural practices, music provides migrants with a means of expression, community building, and identity (re)construction in new contexts. Migrants’ musical activities have been the focus of much multidisciplinary scholarly research. Ethnomusicologists have paid particular attention to music’s potential as a marker of identity, providing a core and acting as cultural glue for the displaced groups

(Bohlman 2011: 155). Numerous ethnomusicological inquiries into migration and musical processes, as Baily and Collyer (2006) highlight, however, have only recently begun to

contribute to the larger arena of migration studies. Moreover, focusing exclusively on song lyrics

(although advantageous in a similar way to creative literature) deprives us from understanding the power of music in evoking memories, capturing emotions, and (re)creating/reminding a sense of place (Baily and Collyer 2006: 168).

The earliest ethnomusicological inquiries in music and migration come from Melville

Herskovits anthropological work on African-American music (The Myth of the Negro Past

1941). Herskovits’ influential work informed ethnomusicology about issues of cultural change and acculturation (Baily and Collyer 2006: 169). Alan Merriam’s new definition of ethnomusicology as “the study of music in culture” (1964) following Herskovits’s anthropological approach led to a recognition of the importance of migration in the creation of new musics and processes of musical change and acculturation.

James Watson’s book, Between Two Cultures (1977) is another seminal work exploring the peculiar position of exiles belonging neither here nor there but somewhere in between.

Watson shows that while repetition of cultural practices can create a sense of comfort responding to feelings of nostalgia and act as a partial antidote to hostility of the new society, examining migrant music-making within the framework of transnationalism depicts an unpredictable dynamism and innovation recognizing migrants as sources of creativity rather than simple repetition. A transnational approach to processes of cultural production not only challenges notions of authenticity of cultural practices at home but also casts light on multifaceted relationships between dispersed groups and transnational communities as a whole. The transnational nature of exilic Persian popular music enlightens the complexity of musical and socio-cultural interactions between homeland and the diaspora.

The emergence of “Urban Ethnomusicology” heralded by Reyes’ article “Ethnic Music” in 1979, and the emphasis she put on the theoretical importance of studying refugees considering their experience of disruptions, traumas and survival attempts in new contexts casts further light on the significance of music-making amongst migrants. Her book, Songs of the Cage, Songs of the Free (Reyes 1999), traces Vietnamese refugees’ musical journeys from the earliest stage to turning into American citizens. Her multi-stage ethnographic journey demonstrates that exile

Vietnamese displayed Westernized aspects of their culture in public while more traditional genres were performed in private domains. Another major study on the inner/outer direction of migrants’ musical activities is Ruth Glasser’s book, Music is my Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians and their New York Communities (1995) in which she discusses the outer-directed manner of

Puerto Rican music as they established, negotiated and introduced their identity and culture in

NYC.

Zheng’s (1990) study of Chinese migrants in the US also examines the different experiences of migration between two groups of Chinese migrants (voluntary and involuntary) with distinct educational and economic backgrounds. The voluntary group formed an encapsulated community with inward-directed musical activities, whereas later involuntary migrants used more outward-directed musical activities and public performances to reach out to the larger society and promote mutual understanding. Rejecting Western instruments and

Western sounding pieces, they used their music to flag their identity in the US.

Zheng’s, Glasser’s and Reyes’ studies ignited new questions regarding the representational nature of Persian music and inward/outward-directed migrant musical activities.

The key question is in what ways MLA and MM differ vis-à-vis the host society? Are the musical activities inward or outward-directed and why/how is this so? Iranians promote Perisan

traditional and folk music for the host society’s consumption, keeping Persian pop, dance tunes and romantic/melancholic ballads to the insiders. There is an on-going process of self- exoticization that tells us about the inward and outward direction of Iranian musical activities.

While MLA has focused its musical activities in an inner-directed way, MM has shown strong tendencies in reaching a wider audience with outer-directed musical activities and in order to establish itself in the vibrant, tolerant and multicultural scene in Northern California.

Baily’s study of Afghan music in Afghanistan (Peshawar), Iran (Mashhad) and in

California (Fermont) focuses on the function of Afghan music in relation to both host and home countries (1999). While in Peshawar and Mashhad it was used to normalize the situation, express hope for a brighter future at home and reconnect migrants with the homeland, in Fermont

California music became a domain of innovation, fusing elements of Afghan music and

American popular music to express a new Afghan-American identity. Baily’s seminal study demonstrates that the context of music-making plays a key role in shaping musical activities. If the setting is open to music-making and encourages innovation, music can become expressive of migrants’ new life and identities.

Baily’s observations speak directly to the complex network of Persian music scene in exile and issues of authenticity, cultural interaction and musical innovation. In the first two- decades Persian music produced in LA was used to recreate and remind of the community’s past and the homeland. In Northern California, however, MM has provided the opportunity to innovate, fuse various elements of Persian music with non- Iranian musics such as jazz, blues and Flamenco. It is not just the geographical setting of the music scene but the socio-cultural context and dominant discourses within which the music is being made/consumed that impact its function and purpose. In MLA, music is guarded by taste-makers, label owners, producers, and

concert managers. The MM scene, however, similar to Fermont in Baily’s research, is an encouraging setting, celebrating innovation and convention breaking.

Another significant aspect of music highlighted in Baily’s study of Afghan migrant music

(1999) is its role in creating or disrupting cohesion within the communities. As Baily shows, music brings the members of the community together. However, this does not necessarily lead to cohesion. Baily’s ethnographic and comparative study of Afghan music in three distinct locales reveals that music can be a vehicle for expressing social conflicts among different ethnic groups and become a divisive rather than conciliatory factor. In Afghanistan, the divisions are ethnolinguistic, whereas in the case of exilic Persian music scenes, such detachments emanate from political and religious conflicts as well as socio-cultural hierarchies.

As a prominent and resilient aspect of immigrant culture, music functions as a primary

“agent of difference,” distinguishing the immigrant world from others (Bohlman 2011:156). But, how about intra-communal differences? What is the function of music in internally diverse communities of immigrants stratified by significant aspects of identity including gender, education, social status, age, political affiliation, and wealth? Comparing MLA and MM, I claim that rather than acting as a cultural glue uniting the community, music can be also a powerful internally divisive factor in immigrant communities. Within the highly diverse community of

Iranians in California, music marks some covert aspects of identity including political siding and cultural capital.

The complexity of migration experience cannot always be reduced to a dichotomous separation of inward and outward looking and cohesive versus divisive musical activities. In his groundbreaking inquiry into the interaction between music and mobility, Philip Bohlman (2011) discusses the notion of “aesthetic agency” in political mobilization. Through an ethnographic

comparison of popular music in Berlin and sacred musical practices among Hispanic immigrants in Chicago, Bohlman opines that music has the potential to afford agency that minority groups do not otherwise possess (2011: 150-151). Digging deep into the discourses of migration to aid our understanding of the counterpoint between music and migration, Bohlman compares and contrasts the dominant discourses marked by distinct clusters of “A” and “D” words (2010). The passive sameness that the “A” group of words—Authenticity, Autonomous, Accommodation,

Adaptation, Acculturation, and Assimilation—suggests puts an end to the migration process with the final step of assimilation. The opposite discourse, however, indicates an active voice recognizing Disjunction, Displacement and the Diasporic condition of in-betweenness. Bohlman emphasizes the active voice of migrants and how they use their music to “regain some measures of power over their lives” (163). In response to the two discourses, Bohlman proposes the notion of “aesthetic agency” that, as a theoretical framework, illuminates music’s active qualities and its power to mobilize migrants.

In response to Bohlman’s categorization of dominant word clusters in discourses of migration, I claim it is time for migration studies to focus on the “T” words: Transformation,

Transition, Trajectories, Transculturation, and Transnationalism. I argue that the “T” word cluster bears a stronger potential in exploring migrants’ aesthetic agency and explaining the experience of migration in the postmodern world. The “T” words not only highlight the active voice of migrants but also underscore the transformative nature of migration. Furthermore, the

“T” cluster reflects the notion of identity as an on-going process of becoming rather than being which casts light on how our experience of music is an experience of “self-in-progress” (Frith

1996a: 109).

Theoretical Framework

Identity

The concept of identity, its construction and transformation and the complex function of cultural signs, in this case music, in such processes are at the heart of my research. In my search for answers to one key question “what is the role of music in shaping Iranian migrants’ identity?”

I draw on postmodern, postcolonial and post-structuralist understandings of identity as shifting and unbounded (Hall 1990; Frith 1996a; Ong 1996; Ricœur 1991). Stuart Hall’s typology of cultural identity (1992) as fixed and omnipresent versus fluid and constantly evolving inform my analysis of identity construction and reproduction in MLA and MM scenes. While both notions exist among Iranians in diaspora, millennials’ conceptualization of identity reflects the postmodern fluidity of boundaries and is less coherent and more interactive with the changing socio-political and cultural contexts. Different readings of identity lead to a diversity of

Iranianness in diaspora and connections to Iran, challenging the meaning of an ethnic community as a culturally, ethnically, and geographically bounded entity.

Rejecting Erik Erikson’s (1974: 58) formulation of identity as a totality covering all aspects of individual’s life, postmodern readings of identity as polycentric, fragmented, and

“patch-work” allow a person to depict different traits and behavior patterns based on social interactions and settings. According to this view, the self consists of part-identities and is located within social relationships (Roesler 2010: 55). The postmodern conceptualization of the process of identity formation as “an internalization of relationships and models from media, sub-groups, etc.” (ibid.) informs my analysis of complex processes of identity construction and reproduction among the displaced Iranians in the US. Drawing on media and artistic outputs, including diasporic musical narratives, and adopting/rejecting socio-cultural values, religious and political

views within enclaves and sub-groups of the larger community, Iranian immigrants undergo a multifaceted process of (dis)identification and identity (re)formation.

Music and Identity

As popular music sociologist Simon Frith highlights (1996a: 109), rather than asking how a piece of music reflects people, we must ask how music produces people and creates a musical and aesthetic experience. To Frith, identity is mobile, a process rather than a thing and a becoming not a being. Our experience of music thus is an experience of “self-in-process” (ibid.).

The odd quality of music in “simultaneous projecting and dissolving the self in performance”

(Mark Slobin quoted in Frith 1996a: 110) makes it a key to identity by offering both a sense of self and others, “of the subjective in the collective” (ibid.).

As an aesthetic practice and social experience, music articulates an understanding of both individuality and collective relations upon which social values and ethic codes are understood.

Thus, in choosing what sounds right individuals not only express but also distinguish self in relation to others. Cultural signs, to echo Paul Ricœur (1991), afford individuals the ability to construct narratives of identity and social groups to perceive themselves as groups. As not only a reflective but also a constitutive factor in our enactment of identity, music gives us a sense of being in the world. Therefore, musical appreciation is indeed a process of musical identification.

Frith’s notion of music as a process in which we discover ourselves through interaction with others (118) frames my analysis of individual and collective notions of self, experience of migration, and nationness in musical activities and scene participation of Iranians in the US.

Transnational Identity

In studies of migration, concepts of identity and transnationalism are inherently juxtaposed. On the one hand, displaced people form transnational networks grounded upon the perception of some form of common identity often based on place of origin and its associated

linguistic and cultural traits (Vertovec 2001: 573). On the other hand, individual and collective identities of such displaced groups are negotiated across several locales (ibid.). As migrants maintain various forms of ties in both their place of origin and other places, transnational communities appear across political borders through which people live dual/ if not multiple lives.

Migrants’ conception of national identity thus emanates from belonging to more than one place.

People living in diverse, deterritorialized, “habitats of meaning” (Hannerz 1996) accumulate multiple cultural repertoires which as a result leads to the construction of a multiplicity of identities. Each locality or habitat represents certain identity-conditioning factors including

“histories and stereotypes of local belonging and exclusion, geographies of cultural difference and class/ethnic segregation racialized socio-economic hierarchies, degree and type of collective mobilization, access to and nature of resources, and perception and regulations surrounding rights and duties” (Vertovec 2001: 578). Therefore, under the impact of certain factors within each locality, members of displaced communities, despite sharing a common place of origin and some sort of sameness, create a diversity of identity narratives and knowledge of self.

Multiple contexts, habitats of meanings, create a “transnational social field” (Glick

Schiller et al, 1992b), “transnational social space” (Pries 1999), “transnational village” (Levitt

2001) or “translocality (Appadurai 1995). Within such a multi-local, deterritorialized world, transnational identities emerge under the influence of complex sets of conditions that affect the construction and reproduction of identities. Migrants weave collective identities across such transnational social fields, out of multiple affiliations, positionings and attachments to traditions, places, and people and beyond confinements of geopolitical boundaries. For Iranians, whose population outside the homeland is increasingly growing, transnational ties and belongings shape not only locally conditioned identities but also notions of Iranianness and collective identity

across national borders. Transnational ties have greatly impacted the music scenes in exile.

Although MLA first emerged as a local scene in Southern California, it gradually transformed into a transnational one. MM, in contrast, emerged from the beginning as a transnational scene due to its roots in Iran’s underground music scene (UM) as well as the global dispersion of musicians since the 2000s.

Ethnic Minorities, Migrants and Strategic Boundary Making

Major theoretical propositions in immigration research, and ethnic studies, including assimilation, integration, multiculturalism, fail to consider the significance of ethnic boundaries, characterizing ethnic groups by specific cultures, networks of solidarity and common identity.

Highlighting the power-driven processes of boundary shifting in “assimilation” and “integration” paradigms, recent studies in ethnicity and immigration pay attention to the making and unmaking of ethnic boundaries indicating the problematic nature of homogenizing ethnic groups (Wimmer

2009). Andreas Wimmer, challenging Herderian ontology of the social world based on ethnicity

(1968), suggests that in many instances members of ethnic groups might not share the same culture, form a “community” through dense social networks, agree on the relevance of different ethnic categories and as a result, might not hold a common identity (2009: 245).

Rather than assuming such commonalities and ethnic closures, he recommends we examine whether such ethnic boundedness exist and pay close attention to individuals who do not form ethnic ties within groups and the diversity of boundary-making strategies among individuals sharing the same background (265). Instead of focusing on the fate of certain immigrant groups, the task must be to make sense of variation in boundary-making strategies and its consequences on individual and communal transformations. Asserting individual agency and depicting diverse notions of self, migrants strategically claim membership to subgroups of

community and echo varied aspects of identity in order to deal with fear and exclusion, reject stereotypes and/or entice interest and inclusion and blend in the larger society.

Wimmer’s attention to ethnic boundary making strategies and questioning the homogeneity of ethnic communities suggests questions about the position of Persian popular music in processes of boundary making among Iranians in diaspora. Music plays an influential function in diasporic Iranians’ strategies of ethnic boundary making. Iranians use musical activities and choices as measures to express aspects of identity and clarify their position within the Iranian community. Except for major cultural festivities (such as Persian New Year/Norooz), the relatively shared love and respect for the three pillars of Persian pop (Ebi, Dariush,

Googoosh) and some common forms of traditional/art Persian music which bring Iranians together on the basis of shared background, other musical activities and choices are used to mark internal divisious into subgroups and multiple affiliations. Ethnic boundaries and subgroup memberships among Iranians are closely tied to Bourdieu’s notion of taste and social stance.

Scene associations and musical activities tell others a lot about who one individual is, what his values, views, aesthetic and socio-cultural capital are, and where they belong.

Bourdieu’s Concept of Taste

Pierre Bourdieu’s view on the correspondence between taste and social hierarchy (1986) provides an enlightening framework for my analysis of MLA and MM scenes in diaspora.

Discussions on taste and aesthetic judgment govern discourses, debates, and participation in the scenes and highlight major distinctions of class and social positions. Bourdieu’s “pure gaze” and the intersection with social hierarchy and issues of power and class are particularly helpful in explaining dominant discourses of MLA and MM propagated by media and their function and position within the Iranian diaspora. To Bourdiue, aesthetic judgment is a marker of class and social hierarchy. Drawing on Bourdieu, I argue aesthetic value of MM and its aura of

intellectuality have established it as intellectually valuable versus the conception of MLA as superficial and meaningless. Participation in the MM scene has become a marker of higher aesthetic values and thus social position.

Moreover, Bourdieu’s concept of “pure gaze” helps explain the notion of authenticity among Persian popular music fans. The “pure gaze” is conceptualized as an autonomous field of artistic production and consumption capable of imposing its own norms (4). An autonomous producer is a master of his product, rejecting not only the historically imposed rules but also the superimposed interpretations. The autonomy of production gives primacy to artist’s mastery of form, style, and manner rather than the ‘subject,’ the external referent. As Bourdieu elucidates, autonomous works of art demand a specific cultural competence. The audience lacking such competence is excluded from the artistic communication. The mastery of cultural competence acquired via contact with works of art generates familiarity that makes the identification of styles, modes of representation, characteristic of a period or a school possible. Higher aesthetic value and cultural competence thus reflect one’s higher education and access, both markers of higher class. Working with independent labels, MM musicians achieve relative autonomy of production while MLA musicians are confined within the market-imposed frameworks. The MM scene provides many examples and dominant discussions on the production of a polysemic,

‘open work’ which as Bourdieu explains is the ultimate form of artistic autonomy (4). Such artistic autonomy is instrumental in establishing the authenticity of the MM scene and inauthenticity of MLA.

Diaspora, Music Scene and Musical Community

Turino distinguishes two types of social groupings; cultural cohorts and cultural formations (2008: 95). While MM and MLA’s participants belong to different cultural cohorts, together they form the broader cultural formation of Iranians in diaspora shaped around more

pervasive patterns of Iranianness, which I investigate in this study. Music, fundamental to forming and sustaining social groups (Turino 2008: 187), plays a pivotal role in the construction of the Iranian collective identity. Community as “a largely mental construct whose objective manifestations in locality or ethnicity give it credibility” (Cohen 1985: 108), is an imagined

(Anderson 1997) and fluid entity, not fixed in temporal and spatial aspects, yet closely associated with concepts of space and nation (Straw 2001: 248). Not yet fully post-national, Iranian immigrant community is inherently transnational via the use of the internet and translocal networks. As a transnational community of displaced Iranians collectively referred to as

“immigrants,” Iranians outside the country form a globally-dispersed “diaspora.”

The overuse and ambiguity of the term “diaspora” requires a theoretical clarification. To

Slobin ““diaspora” leads a double life. At its simplest, it merely marks the existence of an identified population that feels it is away from its homeland, however imagined, however distant in time and space” (2012: 289). It is thus important to distinguish the general use of diaspora and the specifics of a given diaspora as Ingrid Monson suggests (2000:1). In my examination of the

Iranian community, I draw on Safran (1991) and Cohen’s (1997) models of diaspora. I utilize the concept of “diasporic space” as a point of confluence of economic, political, cultural, and psychic processes of peoples, cultures, capital, commodities (Brah 1996: 208) as I examine identity politics in different music scenes. Contrary to the problematic notion of the third space

(Rutherford 1990), which implies a singular and fixed presence of the two others (Sreberny

2002), diasporic space provides a supportive location for the exploration of multiple, translocal identities. I also borrow Hollinger’s concept of cosmopolitanism as ‘belonging as a member to a number of different communities’ (1995: 86) in regard to the millennial participants.

Following Shelemay, I refer to musical community as “[whatever its location in time and place], a collectivity constructed through and sustained by musical processes and/or performances. A musical community can be socially and/or symbolically constituted; music making may give rise to real-time social relationships or may exist most fully in the realm of a virtual setting or in the imagination” (2011: 364). Shelemay’s notion of musical community resonates with Andy Bennett and Richard Peterson’s typology of three distinct music scenes: the local, translocal, and virtual (2005). Constructing different notions of place and social boundary and providing “the means by which hierarchies of place are negotiated and transformed” (Stokes

1994: 3-4), the translocal MM and local MLA form a pair of distinct scenes within the wider

Persian diasporic music scene in which pluralistic notions of nationness, place, host country and homeland are constructed.

A music scene, first defined by Will Straw as “that cultural space in which a range of musical practices coexist, interacting with each other within a variety of processes of differentiation and according to widely varying trajectories of change and cross-fertilization”

(1991: 373), indicates a sense of spatial and cultural boundedness. Sara Cohen’s reading of the term referring to a group of people with a shared musical activity or taste (1999: 239), however, is more fluid and mobile. Unlike “subculture” and “community” which imply music-related groups being delimited and geographically rooted, “scene” emphasizes the dynamic, shifting, and globally interconnected nature of musical activity” (ibid.).

Methodology

I utilized a combination of ethnomusicological fieldwork (participant-observation and interviews), musical and textual analysis (transcription, translation, and interpretation) to answer my research questions. In addition to interviewing individual members of the community, musicians, producers, and event managers in California, Florida, and Washington DC, I attended

a wide range of cultural activities including concerts, stand-up comedy shows, movie screenings, traditional festivities, talks, and political protests in multiple locations with notable Iranian population.

Contrary to much of the single-site scholarship of the Iranian diaspora concentrating on

Southern California, I conducted multi-site fieldwork in Northern (San Francisco Bay Area and

Sacramento) and Southern California (Los Angeles and Irvine), Florida (Gainesville, Orlando, and Miami), Texas (Dallas), and Washington DC. With the large spread of Iranian students and recent graduates throughout the country, a focus on Southern California does not provide an all- encompassing understanding of the community and its musical activities. As I focused on the

Iranian alternative music scene in Northern California, particularly in the San Francisco Bay

Area, I adopted a comparative approach to examine the scene in relation to the long-established

Iranian exilic music scene in Los Angeles. To have an overview of both scenes and to evaluate the scene’s particularities, I selected San Francisco, Berkeley, Stanford, Los Angeles, and Irvine as the central locales of this research. Other places (in Florida, Texas, and DC) were chosen based on their large Iranian population which makes them popular locations for important cultural and musical events. While this research concentrates on California Iranians and music scenes, I investigated musical activities and interviewed community members in other locations to acquire a broader view of the community. Multi-sited study also takes the diversity of experiences and identities in different contexts into condensation and challenges stereotypes such as those attributed to Iranians in LA.2

2 Iranians in California are generally perceived as superficial, rich yet old-fashioned and politically illiterate. In fact, it can be an insult to call someone a losangelesi Iranian. Iranians in other locations in the US tend to clarify their position in regard to those in California, mainly in LA. In general, LA-based Iranians of the previous generation do not approve political and socio-cultural views of young Iranian immigrants. Consequently, internal conflicts divide the community. Such intra-diasporic relationships are quite complex and have tremendous impact on the music scenes and activities in these locations.

In contrast to the single-site, classic model, of ethnographic research in anthropology, multi-site ethnography–a common method in migration studies (Watson 1977) before it was propagated by George Marcus (1986, 1995)–aims for understanding diversity, mobility, and dynamism of cultures and people rather than trying to study and document “an entire culture and social life” (Hannerz 2003: 202). Rather than conceptualizing culture as a static and fixed entity, bounded in spatial and temporal aspects, multi-site ethnographic research considers the dynamism and fluidity that mark humans’ displacements and hybrid identities in the modern world, especially regarding the Iranian diaspora consisting of exiles, immigrants, students, and refugees diversifying the community with varied ethnicities, religious views, and political stances. Furthermore, this favorable methodological approach allows me to expand my view and data collection to investigate the community’s wide range of survival tactics and socio-cultural vibrancy during the past four decades of on and off hostility in the host society. Instead of attempting to understand the entirety of the Iranian diaspora and its musical activities, my intention is to understand processes of cultural interaction and transformation across temporal and spatial contexts.

The Metaphor of the Field: Fieldwork vs. Field Experience

At the outset, it is important to address the complexity of defining the “field” for this research. The field—as a bounded location where the scholar stays to collect data and to evaluate theories and as a primary place for acquiring knowledge (Rice 2008: 46)—becomes ambiguous and unbounded in this research. My status as an Iranian graduate student, my insider/outsider position, my complexion, and my English accent stretch the field to everywhere; requiring me to constantly navigate the boundaries between fieldwork and life experience. The field in this research is best described in Timothy Rice’s words as a “metaphorical creation of the researcher”

(48). As I navigated my role as a community member, musician, and a researcher, I constantly

reflected on my own position, sidings, and personal relationships and values. I incorporated autobiographical excerpts to create a more reflexive ethnographic style that provides insights into deeper and covert migrants’ issues. According to Foley (2002), reflexive epistemological and narrative practices create a more engaging, useful, and storytelling genre of ethnography. While I avoid focusing on my own experiences, I believe some personal reflections can be enlightening and illustrative of critical and veiled aspects of life as an Iranian in today’s America.

Some significant aspects of field experience are related to issues of stance, role, and identity. It is the researcher’s key to success to be constantly aware of the multiplicity and inconsistencies of those identities and stances. Drawing on his own research, Jeff Titon (1985) discusses the variety, limitations and benefits of the roles assigned to him by informants. In the field, researchers are also closely observed and are assigned certain roles. To Titon, a fieldworker’s assigned role is their ‘stance’ (1985: 18). Identity is the role that fieldworker assigns to himself. To Titon, under ideal circumstances stance and identity are the same (19).

Discrepancies between the two lead to serious difficulties in the course of the fieldwork to the extent of threatening its validity.

Rejecting the role-playing approach advocated by Marcia Herndon and Norma McLeod

(1979) who advise the fieldworker to learn to act a part rather than living it, Titon argues that such approach results in “triple dissonance between the acted-out, inauthentic role, and authentic but no longer available role” (1985: 18). While Herndon and McLeod claim (1979: 131) that a skillful role-playing helps the ethnomusicologist to achieve a level of objectivity, Titon contends that this may lead to a more pronounced subjectivity and confusion. As Titon highlights, to conduct a successful research, a researcher should ‘become his own informant’ and evaluate the collected data and statements (23).

In this research, I constantly deal with issues of stance and identity. Shifting positions between insider and outsider, I am required to reflect on my externally and self-imposed roles.

Rather than being fixed polarities as Foley highlights (2013: 229), these fluid positions are navigated according to different circumstances and events encountered in the field. My ‘native self’ status provided me with the language, proper etiquette and codes of behavior among

Iranians; equipping me with tactical strategies in meeting different people in diverse situations.

My researcher self—mostly hidden in public events yet emphatically highlighted in interactions with community leaders, decision-makers, producers, and musicians—empowered me to conduct serious discussions.

In the highly hierarchical Iranian culture and society, my professional self as a PhD student, researcher and musician enabled me to get in touch with people of higher social and financial ranks and opened many closed doors. In fact, it was my professional self that convinced the board of the most significant and impactful Iranian cultural foundation in southern California named “Farhang Foundation” to reach out to me regarding various Persian popular music programs and funding certain musicians. As a young, academic person with knowledge and experience about Iran’s underground music scene, I gained access to some securely closed communities of artists and leaders.3

Following Clifford (1986:2) discarding the pretensions of scientific, unbiased observation and objective stance of the neutral researcher, I employ a postmodern, critical, and self-reflexive approach to ethnography (Stacey 1988: 24), which allows me to be rigorously self-aware of my own unavoidable status and positionality in all interactions in the field. Moreover, feminist standpoint theory and its emphasis on the social situation of the epistemic agent in both

3 Limitations of issues of stance and role are further discussed under “Methodological Obstacles” in this chapter.

facilitating and limiting access to knowledge (Elliot 1994) inform my epistemological and methodological routes.

The ambiguity of the field boundaries and the extension of research to some personal aspects of my life make it difficult to estimate the amount of time dedicated to field research.

Regardless, and apart from my engagement with the community as a member and musician over the past 7 years of living in the US, I conducted twenty months of intensive fieldwork in

California (December 2017- September 2019). Making multiple trips between southern and

Northern California during this focused phase of field research, I interviewed iconic figures of

Persian popular music, community leaders, and a number of young and old Iranian migrants.

Interviews and Conversations

One key method of data collection for this research is conversations with members of the community. Encounters with my field consultants includes conversations on the experience of displacement. At the outset it is important to note that I refer to such encounters – in discussions with Iranians – as conversations rather than interviews since the term ‘conversation’ suggests a friendlier and more dialogic encounter and provides consultants a safe and inviting atmosphere to participate in my research. The general sense of distrust in the community– due to potential threats and traumatic experiences in both homeland and host country– makes it very difficult to convince Iranians to discuss life stories. Thus, while I have a structured set of questions, I allow a flow of ideas and personal life stories. Conversations, designed to take place in single (with the possibility of extension to multiple) session(s), provide me with more flexibility and openness from consultants.

Moreover, the formality of the word ‘interview,’ ‘Mosãhebeh,’ intimidates musicians and stars who want to protect their privacy and avoid journalistic and commercial encounters. As a strategy to tackle the most significant obstacles of gaining trust and acquiring access, I invited

musicians and music-related individuals to participate in friendly conversations rather than interviews. I discussed music making and the experience of migration with over 40 musicians, songwriters, producers, and lyricists across the US. MM and MLA musicians covered various aspects of their musical careers and life as migrant musicians. I also had 40 to 90-minute conversations with a diverse pool of consultants from both phases of migration. Some conversations took place in personal residences, others in cafes and restaurants. Community leaders, event organizers, concert managers, songwriters, singers, and producers are my main informants as they decide what gets produced and promoted and in what ways. Concert organizers and music producers play a fundamental role in both shaping and responding to the mainstream taste and creating metanarratives of migration, homeland, and being Iranian abroad, particularly in tumultuous and unstable times.

In conversation with musicians, I asked questions about meanings of specific songs, compositional styles and cross-cultural borrowings, collaborations with non-Iranian musicians, and experiences of migration and life in exile. With managers and producers, I aimed to understand processes of selection and promotion of certain themes, messages and musicians.

Prior to the conversations, I provided the informants with both Farsi and English versions of the informed-consent form, in which I briefly introduce myself and the research, explain the interview procedure, and ask for permission for video/photography and audio-recording.

However, due to issues of trust and existing fears in the community, I gave them the option of sighing the letters if they felt safe to do so (as many appeared unwilling to sign it, and I did not want this to discourage their participation in the research). Discussions with Iranians were in a combination of Farsi and English, depending on the consultants’ preference. I provide English translations in the text.

Virtual fieldwork

Timothy Rice’s reconceptualization of field as a “metaphor” reshapes our understanding of the place and function of technologies in conducting research in the modern world. According to Cooley, Meizel, and Syed (2008: 90), all technologies used as research methods fall under the rubric “virtual fieldwork.” Explaining “virtuality” as “technological mediations of human interactions” (ibid.), Cooley et al. remind us of the importance of the online world, the internet, chat rooms, and not-so-new technologies of audio and video recordings in facilitating our communicative power.

Virtual fieldwork as the method of using technologically-communicated realities in collecting information for ethnographic research enables us to focus on how people experience and invest power and meaning in communicative technologies (ibid. 91). In the case of this research, virtual fieldwork refers to the method of gathering data on the internet and via the use of digital technologies including online audio and video recordings on YouTube. The significant role and position of Persian “virtual music scenes” and the widespread use of the internet among a big population of Iranians inside and outside of Iran requires me to monitor audience and music-makers’ involvement with the cyberspace. While the Iranian government has filtered many social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook as well as communicative applications namely Telegram along with a vast number of websites (Frenkel 2018; Hafezi

2018), Iranians at home manage to gain access to the online world using anti-blockers and VPNs.

According to a report by Internet World Stats (2017), 69.1% of Iran’s population uses the internet. Instagram, being the most widespread social media platform in Iran (Azali 2017), is particularly utilized by musicians, concert managers and audience to engage in musical activities and discussions.

Abigail Wood’s term “Internet-music-culture” by which she refers to interpersonal activities primarily taking place via computer-mediated communication (2008: 172) is particularly enlightening in this research. Functioning as online supercultures, online musical communities and members’ involvement in group interactions provide crucial insights on nuanced aspects of construction and expressions of identity in different cyber communities. As each community has specific cultural references and because membership is self-selecting based on interest, cultural literacy becomes a strong marker of insider identity and participating in communal conversations serves a major tool to express group membership. Hence, it is of great significance for me to expand my data collection and utilize a diversity of content and discourse analysis methods within the cyberspace.

I engaged with a variety of online communities and forums on different social media platforms and webpages in order to pinpoint and decode markers of identity and group membership. I spent numerous hours investigating musicians’ and music-related pages on social media especially Instagram. As the only social media platform not blocked by the Iranian regime, Instagram is exploited by musicians to reach out to their audiences and announce their performances and the release of their works. Other platforms including Twitter and Facebook are also used to announce events, collect audiences’ opinions, recruit musicians, and share personal views on a variety of socio-political events.4 I monitored targeted musicians’ personal pages and fan pages to acquire an understanding on what they do and how they are perceived by the audience in both Iran and diaspora.

4 I further discuss the role of social media and digital technologies in shaping Iranian music scenes under the section “virtual music scenes.”

Performance as Research Technique

The idea of performance study as research was propagated by Mantle Hood in a seminal article in 1960 and was further developed as a core concept in his book The Ethnomusicologist

(1982). Introducing the notion of “bi-musicality,” Hood advocated an approach to the study of non-Western music that puts great emphasis on Western scholars’ training and musicianship in the music they are investigating. While Hood’s notion of “bi-musicality” has received some criticism on its underlying ethnocentrism and the assumption that Western scholars are competent in Western music and need to learn a second musical language (Witzleben 2010:

136), his insistence on musicality and fluency in the second musical tradition has had a great impact on the development of the field and field research over the past decades.

Following Hood, key ethnomusicologists including Charles Seeger, Bruno Nettl, and

Helen Myers highlighted the significance of learning to dance, sing, and play in the field as not only being good fun but also a good method (Myers 1992:31). Discussing the benefits of learning to play as a research technique along with interviewing and note-taking, Myers emphasizes the joy of being a student again and establishing relationships with musicians in the field as a scholar attempts to become fluent in a new musical tradition (ibid.).

Nettl takes Hood’s notion of bimusicality one step further and uses the term to refer to both a research practice and an inherent characteristic of many cultures around the world.

Asserting the bi/polymusical nature of various music cultures, Nettle expands the concept of bimusicality as a development of fieldwork in which the scholar learns to participate as a performer or composer (2005: 58). Steven Feld is a great example of an ethnomusicologist who engaged with the studied music not only as a singer and drummer but also as a composer (1990:

237). Later, Anthony and Judy Seeger further expanded the concept of bimusicality by singing and playing American folk music to Amazonian people while they also learned to perform the

Suyá repertoire (2004). To Seeger, this forms an integral part of a continuing process of cultural exchange.

While many scholars chose their new instrument based on its similarities with those they already played (Sarkissian 2000), others selected their instrument considering the specificities of the music they studied (Bakan 1999; Kippen 2008). Some ethnomusicologists such as Deborah

Wong (2001) placed pedagogy at the center of their research as a gateway to observe and analyze issues of power and control in the transmission of knowledge whereas others including Patricia

Campbell highlight the value of ethnomusicologists student perspective in raising awareness of teaching-learning process referred to as ‘transmission and acquisition’ and ethnomusicology’s extremely beneficial role in the development of music education (2003: 25). Moreover, issues of gender in the fieldwork began to attract further scholarly attention as performance practice found a particular position in ethnomusicological enquiries in the late 2000s. Carol Babiracki attended to her dual role as a female dancer and ungendered researcher (1997). She not only observed but also tackled such gender complexity by documenting as much as early in the events before her age and gender identities impacted her position in the field (127).

As the diversity of musical ethnographies utilizing performance practice technique reveals, ethnomusicology benefits from deeper engagement with musical traditions once the role of the researcher transforms to that of a disciple. In a seminal article in 2001, John Baily provides a list of five ways learning to perform in conducting the fieldwork benefits ethnomusicologists. To Baily, ethnomusicologists as musical apprentice 1) acquire the musical skills, 2) gain insights on musicality and musical cognition within the tradition they study, 3) enhance their understanding of role, status, and identity as they gain an acceptable position within the community as a student, 4) engage in a more profound participant-observation

process, 5) get involved in a post-fieldwork, wider process of transfer and retransfer of the music from one environment to another (Baily 2001: 93-96). Moreover, the opportunity to perform the music enables the researcher to go back to the field in the years to come.

In the words of Titon, “the word is not like a text being read but like a musical performance to be experienced” (1997: 91). Performance as methodology results in more nuanced and reflexive ethnographies enabling the researcher to spend longer and more profound engagement with music scenes. In this research, I began to utilize the participant-performance technique in order to acquire insider knowledge about MM scene, its politics of belonging, musical values, and behind-the-scenes realities. The dominant rock sound of the MM motivated me to take up the drum set as a new instrument in order to fit in. I started to take drum lessons once I moved to Northern California as I noticed the need for Iranian drummers. In a few months

I was contacted and offered several opportunities to rehearse with significant MM artists.

While my gender and age became particularly highlighted as I entered the field as a musician, on the positive side, it provided me a much broader access to the inner circle of musicians who had previously neglected my requests for conversations. My involvement with

MM as a drummer helped me gain significant insights about “the normal everyday way of being in the world, not to an analytical way but to a self-aware way” (Titon 1997: 93). Besides, as Rice observed (1997: 107), I learned to differentiate fieldwork from fieldplay. To conclude, this

“performative ethnography,” to borrow Deborah Wong’s term (2008), not only casts light on covert issues of power and control in both MM and MLA scene but also contributes to multidisciplinary approaches to fieldwork methodology.

Musical and Textual Analysis

Musical descriptions and analysis allow me to examine musical borrowings and syncretism on the one hand, and retention and revival of Persian melodies, rhythms, and

instruments on the other. Through musical analysis, I identify and demonstrate precise examples of retained musical linkages and transformations, which help me investigate the representation of

Iran and Iranianness in MLA and MM. I select songs based on their popularity determined through audience and producer inputs, their position in Iranians’ collective memory discussed in conversations, frequency of performance in live shows, and the number of plays on Radio Javan and YouTube.5 I analyze selected songs as musical snapshots across four decades and interpret them according to migration themes and issues of identity. Poetry, being a significant aspect of

Iranian’s culture and life, makes the lyrical contents very important in the successful reception of songs. I pay close attention to song lyrics. Lyrical analysis includes translation and interpretation of contents.

Methodological Obstacles

Fieldwork is an incredible, eternally transforming, and challenging part of becoming an ethnomusicologist. Creating a complexity of ethical and political challenges related to issues of trust, cultural ownership, and authority, the experience of fieldwork ignites some crucial questions about the “native” and “professional” self and the involved community. While some hardships seem devastating and even heartbreaking at first, they prove to be extremely helpful and eye-opening during the process of data collection and analysis. It is thus necessary to discuss some of the obstacles I faced during the past two years of intensive fieldwork among Iranians in the US.

One of the many and multifaceted difficulties of conducting this research was navigating and balancing my own sense of identity between “native” and “professional” self. On the one

5 Radio Javan (Radio Youth) is the main platform for Persian music distribution today. It promotes not only exile but also underground and Iranian officially-approved musics. https://www.radiojavan.com/.

hand, my age, gender, and the recentness of migration to the US diminished my authority and importance as a researcher; framing me as an insignificant and unexperienced student to some informants. On the other hand, it all added to issues of trust. In one instance, a reputable lyricist of pre-revolutionary Persian popular music told me “when you contacted me on Facebook, I thought you might be a spy for the Iranian regime. I investigated your information, photos, and posts before I convinced myself to respond to you.”

In addition to challenges related to authority and trust, the ambiguity of my stance as both an insider and outsider to the community came as confusing to not only others but also myself.

To many Iranians, I look and sound “American,” or “Western,” and in general non-Iranian. In so many instances, Iranians were shocked to hear me speak Farsi fluently. More importantly, such ambiguity obstructed my own understanding of field encounters and realities at different times.

Among southern California Iranians of the previous, and even some of today’s, generation, I find myself an outsider. To me, Cyrus the Great’s majesty, the greatness of the Persian Empire, heritage, and culture are not as meaningful or valuable as they are to many Iranians in diaspora. I do not ascribe to the belief that “the arts belong to Persians and Persians only.”6 I certainly do not approve of the monarchal system.

In LA, I am an outsider, a child of the revolution, rejected and even feared for my different socio-political views. In Northern California and among the younger generation of

Iranians located particularly in the SF area, however, I feel more included and accepted. As an insider, I engage in more meaningful conversations and experiences with migrants of my own generation. My role in the field, as in the case of Catherine Foley (2014), becomes ambiguous at times and requires me to constantly evaluate and be aware of my own understandings, prejudices

6 A famous saying in Farsi “Honar Nazd-e Irãniãn Ast o Bas.”

and biases. Besides, I had to hide my position as a researcher on different occasions. I noticed

Iranians found my notetaking alarming. Thus, I avoided appearing as an observant and curious person and did not take notes on notepads. Depending on the context, at shows, political talks, or concerts, I had to record my voice or type in my phone. This research involved a great level of secrecy and navigation of my position in the field.

As mentioned earlier, accessing the musicians and general body of informants and convincing them to sit and discuss their life stories and musical careers has been another/my biggest difficulty in conducting this research. Many informants rejected my invitations to talk for a variety of reasons including protecting themselves against threats posed by the Iranian regime, the Iranian immigrant community, and the host country. Many requests were rejected right away while others promised to participate but chose not to later. I managed to tackle this issue by making friendships in the community and using mutual contacts as references. I have also taken advantage of my husband’s status as a known musician within the alternative music scene (MM) to gain people’s trust in many cases.

Moreover, I enjoyed my acquaintance with leading MM managers in San Francisco and

LA to get in touch with famous musicians including Sara Naieini, Hamed Nikpay, and Mohsen

Namjoo. However, my attempts to convince MLA stars to talk with me failed to a large extent.

Very famous singers such as Dariush, Leila Forouhar, and Googoosh did not respond to requests expect for the MLA icon Andy Madadian who participated in this study. Others such as Schubert

Avakian rejected them with no explanation. In the MM scene, I found musicians more eager to participate in an academic research. Some proved to be genuinely interested whereas others accepted because they could not say no to their managers. While I was devastated and felt harshly rejected at first, I gradually learned to view the whole issue of access as a process, rather

than an event (Delamont 2009: 60). With every rejection or acceptance, I delved into various aspects of “why” and “how” and acquired a better understanding of intra-communal relationships, issues and conflicts.

Discourse Analysis

As a methodological approach to interdisciplinary fields of inquiry, discourse analysis focuses on the sociocultural and political context of texts under investigation (Lupton 1992). It is primarily concerned with an analysis of dominant ideologies and belief systems in sets of statements/discourses located in social and political structures. Borrowing a linguistic approach, discourse analysis aims to cast light on correlations between language and ideology to explore relations of power encoded in diverse aspects of texts including syntax, style and rhetorical devices (ibid.). Taking text as diverse forms of musical and extra-musical in MLA and MM, I utilized a Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis to investigate relations of power in production, distribution and consumption of music in US-based Iranian diaspora.

A nuanced approach to analyzing texts, in all forms of representation from pictures, interview transcripts, poems to fieldnotes, concert programs, and music, the Foucauldian discourse analysis aims to investigate the production of knowledge within social and historical contexts. Dealing with complex networks of statements and variety of meanings attributed to different musical and extra-musical texts in both MLA and MM scenes, I find the concept of discourse and the Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis very fruitful and enlightening. In

Michel Foucault’s postmodern view, “a discourse provides a set of possible statements about a given area and organizes and gives structure to the manner in which a particular topic, object, process is to be talked about” (Kress 1985: 7). In other words, to Foucault, a discourse consists of a set of statements that are often taken for granted or are assumed as common knowledge.

Allowing for certain ways of thinking about reality and excluding others (Cheek 2004:

1142), discursive frameworks both enable and confine the production of knowledge. As such, discursive formations determine what can and cannot be said, by whom, and with what authority.

It is evident that power is at the center of discursive formations. In the case of (extra)musical discursive formations, both MLA and MM decide who gets the stage, the voice, to say what, and how. Discussions on MLA and MM, and in broader sense Persian popular music in exile, are governed by discourses, or set of statements, that not only reflect but also shape Iranians understanding of the musics and their functions in wider social and cultural spheres. It is thus vital to take an analytical and critical approach to such discourses to cast light on both musics role in the Iranian diaspora.

As Cheek highlights (2004: 1144), there is no unified and unitary approach to discourse analysis as a consequence of its multidisciplinary inflection and origins. Within poststructural and postmodern frames of thought, discourse analysis goes beyond analyzing the content of texts in terms of syntax and semantics. Postmodern discourse analysis rather involves an enquiry of texts’ social and historical “situatedness” (ibid.). Informed by postmodern and poststructural understandings, discourse analysis is a form of inquiry that rejects the universality and transparency of texts. Instead, it aims to understand particular meanings assigned by diverse producing and consuming agents according to historical and social specificities. As such, by investigating the socio-historical contexts and taking power relations into consideration, discourse analysis helps us shed light on the dynamic relationship between text and context as texts are not only constitutive but also constructed by their contexts (ibid.).

I borrow discourse analysis not as a fixed method, but as a methodological approach to explain MLA and MM as complex discourses created and shaped under specific socio-political

and historical contexts. Using conventional data collection techniques, I explore a diversity of texts including interview transcripts, fieldnotes, songs’ lyrics, newspaper articles, field observations, visual images and of course music, to illuminate covert power relations in Iranian exilic music scenes in the US.

Significance and Contribution

As an emergent and florishing music scene in the Iranian diaspora, MM has not received much scholarly attention. This dissertation addresses the gap in the scholarship on exilic Persian music and the influential function of music scenes as a site for the expression of identity within the Iranian community as it deals with issues of trauma, alienation, identity negotiation, and cultural preservation. An ethnographic study of contemporary Persian popular music scenes in

California, this dissertation will contribute to ethnomusicological scholarship on diasporic musics and responds to the need for the exploration of the on-the-ground realties and translocal and transnational notions of identity among the displaced in the shifting context of the postmodern world. Demonstrating the significance of music in the interplay between maintaining ties with the homeland and forging new identities and senses of Iranianness abroad, this dissertation contributes to studies of Iranian diaspora in fields as diverse as migration studies, anthropology, sociology, and popular culture studies of not only Iranians but all migrants.

The resulting document will be a beneficial case study for evaluating theories of identity, diaspora, migration, globalization, and popular music studies. Moreover, migration research and support institutions, globally-dispersed Iranian socio-cultural organizations, and musicians can benefit from musical and lyrical analyses, ethnographic and media reports and interviews with influential members of the community particularly musicians. Furthermore, inspiring research questions regarding the place and significance of Persian popular music among second-

generation Iranian Americans, this study instigates the investigation of popular music in processes of identity construction among future generation of immigrants.

Plan of Dissertation

This dissertation is organized in six chapters. Following Chapter 1 presenting the research, its scope, context, place in academic scholarship, objectives, methods and theoretical frameworks, Chapter 2 provides a brief history of Iranian migration, introduces the brain drain movement, and examines the US Iranian community within the framework of diaspora.

Discussing the last two waves of Iranian migration (1980s and 2000s) in their specific socio- political contexts in the homeland and host counties, the chapter builds a foundation for discussing Iranian musical activities and music scenes.

Chapter 3 examines the emergence and development of the two distinct scenes of MLA and MM in diaspora. Borrowing from existing literature on MLA (Hemmasi 2010), I focus on the MM scene, its linkage to the music (especially the underground/unlawful music) inside Iran, key figures, musicians, surrounding discourses, sounds, forms and contents. Drawing on theories of music scene (Bennett and Peterson 2004, Cohen1999; 1993) and participant-observation research in the MM scene, the chapter provides an ethnographic account of MM and how it relates to and competes with MLA.

Chapter 4 uses postmodern and transnational conceptualizations of identity as fluid and polycentric and the function of music in the construction and negotiation of migrant identity to explain the notion of nationness and strategic acts of boundary making among Iranians in diaspora. Chapter 4 attends to complex processes of disidentification and the role of music scenes in shaping migrant narratives of identity. On the one hand, music can be a cohesive factor in certain contexts such as cultural celebrations. On the other, it can be a divisive factor distinguishing scene participants on the basis of their musical tastes, implying a complexity of

socio-cultural capital and political views. Thus, music creates further social stratification within the community and marks intra-communal power relations.

Chapter 5 explores narratives of homeland longing and belonging and shifting expressions of nostalgia in MLA and MM scenes. A theory of nostalgia (Boym 2001) informs the investigation of the constantly evolving relationship between Iranian diaspora and the homeland and aims to explain the role of music in shaping and maintaining homeland and diaspora ties. The epilogue provides an overview of each chapter’s key findings on the complex role of music in the context of migration using the case study of Iranian community and its musical activities in California and raises new questions for future research.

Figure 1-1. An image from the jam session, photo credit goes to Alireza Pourreza.

CHAPTER 2 IRANIAN MIGRATION AND THE FORMATION OF A DIASPORA

The emergence and development of popular music in Iran has been closely connected to

Iranian migration and cultural/artistic ties to the West—not only under Shah’s Westernizing policies but also more importantly after the Islamic revolution of 1979. The relocation of the production center of pre-revolutionary Persian popular music to Southern California in the 1980s and the emigration of underground and alternative musicians in the 2000s under the impact of

Iran’s strict regulation of musical activities underscore the interrelationship between Iranian migration and the survival and transformation of Persian popular music in exile. This chapter’s two key objectives are to 1) provide a historical background of Iranian migration to the West focusing mainly on the US, 2) examine and frame the US Iranian community based on the theoretical models of diaspora (Safran 1991; Butler 2001; Cohen 1997) and transnationalism

(Glick-Schiller 1992b; Vertovec 2009). An understanding of the history of Iranian migration and formation of the transnational Iranian diaspora in the US since 1979 builds the foundation for the exploration of Iranian diasporic identity and the establishment and development of exilic Persian popular music scenes in the following chapters.

Historical Background of the Iranian Migration

The exploration of Iran’s modern history of migration is enlightening not only in regard to reasons and conditions for migration but also how different waves of migrants have influenced both the Iranian diaspora and the homeland. Moreover, it provides a historical background for the initial emergence of popular music in Iran during the 1960s and in the diaspora in the 1980s.

In a collection of conversations about Iran’s encounter with modernity and modernization

(2008), Ramin Jahanbegloo interviews Iranian sociologist and author of Iran Dar Mohajerat

(Iran in Migration) (2009), Vida Nasehi-Behnam, on the history of Iranian migration and its vital

role in introducing modernity into diverse domains of the society.1 Nasehi-Behnam believes that forced migration in response to poverty or political, religious, and ethnic suppression has made

Iranian expatriates nostalgic and guilty (Jahanbegloo 2008: 55). Such feelings of remorse and nostalgia have motivated many Iranian emigrants to contribute to the homeland’s progress, inspire thought, transfer significant concepts of modernity and liberal values, and aid/encourage political activism. Migration, therefore, has had influential impacts on Iran’s move toward modernity and modernization since the late 19th century.

Although Iran has never been a direct colony of European empires, Iranian migration and the country’s path to modernization have been influenced by colonial interferences in the region.

Between the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the First World War, most parts of the

Middle East and North Africa were either formally colonized or under varying degrees of

“informal empire” (Sluglett 2005: 248). In North Africa, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco were under the French rule. Libya and Egypt were annexed by Italy and Britain respectively (France was also economically involved in Egypt). On the Arabian Peninsula, Bahrain and today’s Arab

Emirates were controlled by the British (ibid. 249). With the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, Britain and France took control of the former Arab Ottoman provinces. Britain took control over Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan, and France ruled Lebanon and Syria.

The rest of the Middle East was not under direct colonial rule, yet European interferences remained strong. Between 1920-1922 the Soviet Union took control over Eastern Armenia and some parts of Turkey (the Turkish Republic was established in 1922). Iran was of political and economic interest to Russia and Britain from the late 18th century to 1907. The Constitutional

1 Ramin Jahanbegloo is Iranian philosopher and associate professor of political science at York University.

Revolution of 1906–11 challenged the authority of both European powers. The British imposition, however, increased between 1908 (when oil was discovered in south-western Iran) and 1925 (when Reza Khan ended the Qajar empire and claimed the imperial crown with the support of the British). In this period, Britain interfered in Iranian affairs, supported the government financially, and rearranged the army.

In addition to the continuous British and Russian interests, the US forged an alliance with

Iran in the 1950s. The US protected Iran against the Soviet expansion, empowered the shah to establish a repressive state, and guaranteed the import of Iranian oil (Shannon 2014), which enabled the Shah to invest in the Westernization of the country. During the Shah’s reign over

Iran, various aspects of the Iranian society, including arts and culture, were impacted tremendously by widespread Western values. Encouraged by Shah’s Westernizing policies, many British, Italian, Russian, and French musicians resided and performed in Tehran. These musicians played key roles in the emergence and development of Persian popular music in the

1950s through their musicianship, musical tastes, and records they brought into the country.

Foreign influences impacted Iran’s domestic and international policies and ignited the earliest waves of Iranian migration. The first wave of Iranian migration originated in the early

19th century when bankruptcy, increased poverty, and war with Russia forced mine workers and farmers to move to Russia in search of jobs. During this period, approximately 300,000 Iranians left Iran, including Mirza Fath Ali Akhoondzadeh, author of Maktoubaat (‘Scripts,’ a major manuscript on modern concepts of colonialism, revolution, and progress which addressed women’s issues for the first time), who became a key figure in the history of Iranian modernization. The main impacts of this wave included the establishment of “Iranian socio- democrat committee” as well as two schools and two newspapers in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The second wave of out-migration began in the mid-19th century and included both compulsory and voluntary migration. Confronting governmental suppression and pressure on religious minorities, intellectuals and followers of Bábism faith moved to Turkey, Egypt, France,

Germany, and England. There is no authoritative estimate of the number of Iranians who left the country in this period, but their impact is acknowledged as various Farsi newspapers and periodicals were founded in Istanbul, Cairo, Kolkata, and London. In addition, intellectuals who settled in Paris, Berlin and London were fundamental in the Constitutional Revolution in 1906.2

Mirza Aghakhan Kermani3 and Seyyed Jamal Addin Asadabadi (Al-Afghani)4 are two of the most influential figures who migrated during this era.

The next phase appeared in the early 20th century after the Constitutional Revolution and is considered a continuation of the second wave. Between 1908 and 1909, intellectuals, journalists, and political activists left Iran for Turkey and Europe as a response to a new era of suppression known as Estebdãd-e Saghir (“Small Suppression”). During this phase, Istanbul,

Paris, Berlin, and London became centers for the dissemination of Iranian culture and progressive thoughts between the homeland and the outside world. Prominent linguist Ali Akbar

Dehkhoda and influential politician and diplomat, Hassan Taghizadeh left Iran in this migration wave.

2 The Constitutional Revolution of Iran was ignited by oppositions against Naser o-Din Shah’s government corruption. A diversity of social, economic, and ideological factors including a new appreciation for Western liberalism and constitutionalism contributed to the revolution. A group of secular reformists and progressive ulama, who believed in the necessity of controlling the government’s authority by a parliament and constitution, led the opposition (Afary 1996: 23). The oppositional activities culminated in 1906 when Mozafar o-Din Shah of Qajar was forced to create an elected parliament (the Majlis).

3 Iranian intellectual whose reformist ideas laid out the Constitutional Revolution of 1906.

4 Islamic ideologist, political activist, and one of the founders of Islamic modernism.

Between 1921-1979 an estimate of over 80,000 people, including many students, left Iran under the impact of Pahlavi Shahs’ (father and son) industrialization and modernization policies.5 Mohammad Reza Shah’s (the son, known as the Shah) modernization program aimed for an expansion of urbanization and economic infrastructure, empowerment of women in the society, and construction of a more educated working class, a more proficient technocratic class, and a larger middle class (Milani 2011: 99). In this period, many students moved to the West in pursuit of state-of-the-art knowledge and expertise. Considering the fact that many students returned home upon completing their studies in Europe and the US, scholars such as Nasehi-

Behnam do not label this a migration wave (Jahanbegloo 2008). It is important to note, however, that many students sought political asylum and stayed in the West in the years leading to the revolution. Those who returned introduced significant political concepts of “nation-state” and

“national identity,” which later led to the nationalization of oil industry under Mohammad

Mossadegh, establishment of modern education and judiciary systems, support for women movements, and vocal opposition to Mohammad Reza Shah. Moreover, emigrant students established the first ‘Iranian Student Association’ outside Iran in 1961, which played a key role in the revolution of 1979. As Nasehi Behnam highlights (ibid. 64), this was the second time, after the constitutional revolution, that Iranians outside the country ignited and led a revolution and brought about change within Iran.

The 1960s and 1970s had a significant impact on Persian popular music. The emergence of popular music in Iran in the 60s is closely associated with the Shah’s modernizing and

Westernizing policies in this period. On the one hand, many Western musicians moved to Iran to play in clubs and bars due to the expansion of the music industry’s infrastructure with the Shah’s

5 See Askari et al. (1977) for detailed reports of Iranian immigrant population in the US during this period.

support (Nettl 1972). On the other hand, Iranian musicians took advantage of state funding to pursue music education in the West. Highly influential musician, arranger, and composer,

Varoujan Hakhbandian—one of the key figures of Persian popular music— is an example. He studied music in the US for four years in the 1960s after finishing his training in Iran’s National

Conservatory of Music (Attaran 2016: 41- 49).6 Varoujan wrote and arranged some of the most memorable hits of Persian popular music such as “Khãbam ya Bidãram,” “Hamsafar,” and

“Komakam Kon” by Googoosh, “Poost-e shee” by Ebi, and “Bãradar Jãn” by Dariush.

The fourth and largest wave of Iranian migration began in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution. Iran’s Islamic Revolution stemmed from lower- and middle-class dissatisfaction with

1) economic injustice and the increased gap between classes and 2) augmented Western influences (in all economic, political, and cultural aspects) on the Iranian society. Revolutionary leader Khomeini (who had been in exile in Iraq and then France) understood that Iranians were in search of justice and authenticity in the face of monarchial modernizing and Westernizing policies. Khomeini integrated populist slogans, Islamic principles, Persian nationalist ideas, and leftist concepts into a unified narrative and led various strands of dissent into a cohesive force.

His emphasis on the protection of Islam and liberation of Iran (two central tents of Khomeini’s ideology) transformed Islam into an anti-Western ideology and mobilized the Iranian populace by invoking anticolonial sentiments (Takeyh 2006: 10-16).

With the establishment of a religious autocracy led by Khomeni that was resistant to foreign influences and intolerant of oppositional religious, political, and cultural values, many

6 The governmental support for Varoujan’s music education in the US is controversial. Attaran quotes some of Varoujan’s friends and colleagues confirming it, while others reject it (2016: 41-43). Regardless, it is important to know that as a key figure in Persian popular music, Varoujan brought much musical knowledge and experience to Iran upon his return from the US. He was a music teacher in the Southern province of Ahvaz and led several Armenian choirs for two years (ibid.). His music education in the US enabled him to introduce new styles of arrangement and orchestration to Persian popular music.

Iranians left the country (ibid. 15). This phase of Iranian migration differed from its preceding ones in that first, it lasted over a decade. Second, it was not merely political but also cultural and social as many artists, movie stars, and musicians left the country in this period too. In this familial, rather than individual, wave of migration, over a million Iranians migrated to various locations around the world including Turkey, Sweden, France, Germany, and the US. Iranians’ close contact with Western societies due to increased exposure to Western cultures and languages under the impact of the Shah’s Westernizing policies facilitated migrants’ transition and empowered women in countries of settlement and inspired social movements at home.

Furthermore, migrants’ attempt to maintain ties with Iran helped alleviate the country’s isolation resulted by radical acts such as the occupation of US embassy in Tehran in the early years after the revolution. While people of various sectors left Iran in this period, the majority comprised aristocrats, military, and in general more affluent groups who had the means and financial ability for migration. Facing the new government’s threats, the majority of the country’s popular music stars such as Ebi (Ebrahim Hamedi), Leila Forouhar, Shabpareh brothers, and Sattar as well as movie stars including Behrouz Vosoughi, Parviz Sayyad, Farzan

Deljoo, and Shohreh Aghdashloo departed Iran involuntarily between 1979 and the late 1980s.

These stars settled largely in Southern California where they established a vibrant exilic popular music/culture scene and various exilic media platforms including television and radio stations.

The most recent, and ongoing, wave of migration began in the early 2000s in response to

Iran’s political oppression, censorship, and the increased economic difficulties during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013). After the Green Movement and harsh suppression of riots following the second-term presidential election of Ahmadinejad different groups of people—particularly students, intellectuals, political activists, and musicians/artists—

sought a variety of ways to leave Iran and settle in Europe, north America, Australia, and Iran’s neighboring countries such as Turkey and the U.A.E. The large emigration of Iranian elites and professionals (known as the Brain Drain) belongs to this phase of migration.

The term “Brain Drain” refers to the outflow of highly educated and professionals, scientists, qualified workers, and technologists (Tavakol 2012: 161). More recent terms such as

“brain circulation” and “brain exchange” imply positive aspects and potential benefits of the migration of highly qualified individuals compared to negative terms such as “brain waste” which indicate the sending country’s intellectual loss. The concept, however, has generally remained associated with the ‘loss of human capital’ from the perspective of sending countries

(ibid.: 162). Brain drain is mainly caused by negative (push/outflow) factors in the source countries and enticing motivations (pull/inflow factors) in the receiving countries. Pull factors such as the appeal of Western ideal of individual liberty drive dissatisfied and marginal groups to move to the West. Incentives range from economic (unemployment and low salaries), and personal (poor career opportunities and cultural pressures), to social (poor living and working conditions as well as social uncertainty) and political (religious and ideological discriminations, restraints on freedom and political instability and insecurity) reasons.

Brain drain has a diversity of consequences for sending and receiving countries. On the negative side, the sending countries face loss of intellectual potential, economic investment, and tax revenue as well as labor shortages—particularly in critical sectors such as medical care, technology, administration and education. On the positive side, emigrants receive knowledge, foreign education and values, send home remittances, and enhance foreign relations (as the examination of history of Iranian migration discussed by Nasehi Behnam also demonstrates).

The impacts on the receiving countries are mostly positive as they gain a highly educated and

qualified workforce and increased economic profits without having invested in the workers’ education, (Exenberger 2007: 15).

The data on international migration flows are frequently unreliable and thus difficult to analyze (Tavakol 2012: 163). It is estimated that there are approximately 1.5 million migrant professionals from developing countries in the developed countries (ibid.). According to

Tavakol, Iran ranks highest in brain drain among 91 countries he analyzed (ibid. 164-65). A report by the International Monetary Fund in 2006 reports that 150,000 to 180,000 educated

Iranians exit the country each year. The enormous magnitude of the emigration of scholars and university graduates to the United States, Canada, and Western Europe has had a catastrophic impact on Iran. Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology has estimated a loss of over $38 billion annually; twice the annual oil revenue for the country (ibid.).

The Iranian brain drain began in 1997 (Torbat 2002: 293) and reached a peak in the mid

2000s. During this period, a significant population of young, highly educated and talented

Iranians moved to the West in pursuit of higher education and a more prosperous economic future. With the exacerbation of economic and sociopolitical conditions, impacted by domestic and global politics, more and more Iranians attempt to leave the homeland with no hope/intend for/to return. While economic factors are the most compelling reasons for the displacement of highly educated elite from developing to developed countries, for Iranians political factors are also as significant (Torbat 2002:295). The Islamic government’s intrusion into private domains of life, suppression of democracy, hostility toward the West and Western-educated, insertion of

Islamic beliefs in academia and the education system, high and progressively surging rates of unemployment, and favoring the inner-circle of individuals and Islamic ideologues in various

strata of governance and job market are among the key push factors motivating the emigration of

Iranians. The emigration of musicians in this wave is also in response to such push factors.

Despite Iranian officials’ expression of interest in the return of professional expatriates— having begun in Rafsanjani’s era of reconstruction after Iran-Iraq war (Torbat 2002: 291),

Iranians living in the West have shown reluctance to return as they are accustomed to Western democracies’ rule of law and freedom of speech and ideas. The regime’s record of arrests and interrogation of expatriate elites in the past decade has also led to further discouraging of reversing of the brain drain (Catanzaro 2016; Wintour 2018). The factors and conditions of this emigration wave, and emigres’ unwillingness to return, have helped establish the uniqueness of the Iranian diasporic community in the US.

Sociological studies of Iranian immigrants in the US indicate that Iranians have attained significantly higher educational achievements than other foreign-born groups, have achieved rapid success, and are one of the most high-status immigrant groups (Bozorgmehr and Sabagh

1988; Ansari 1992). Such profiling of Iranians highlights the existence of elites in diaspora. The first wave of Iranian elites’ emigration to the West initiated in the mid-1970s in response to the

Shah’s political repressions, dissolution of all existing political parties, and formation of a single party called Hezbe-e Rastakhiz-e Mellat-e Iran (‘The Iranian People’s Resurgence Group’). In this era, many political activists and academics left the country. Led by Ayatollah Khomeini at the end of the 1970s, the revolution to overthrow the Shah and establish the Islamic Republic generated a series of systematic attempts to cleanse the Iranian society from Western influences, leading to the closure of universities for three years—in a period called the “Cultural

Revolution” (Enghelab-e Farhangi) (Torbat 2002: 274-275). Subsequently, numerous secular elites, highly qualified professors, and professionals departed Iran.

In the years following the revolution, the migration of Iranians continued due to the regime’s political repression and widespread surveillance of private life. The emigration of highly educated Iranians reached its first peak in the aftermath of increased tensions between the regime and university students in July of 1999 (Torbat 2002: 289). A massive exodus of educated Iranians continued through the 2000s, accelerating drastically due to the same political tensions in the end of the decade by the harsh suppression of people’s riots in response to the election of Ahmadinejad. Starting with large numbers of medical professionals in the 1990s,

Iranian elites have secured prominent positions in American institutes of higher education as experts, professors and doctoral students in various fields and in the tech industry in the Silicon

Valley.

I consider this growing trend of emigration of Iran’s brightest college graduates as the fifth wave of Iranian migration to the US (see Table 2-1 for an overview of Iranian migration waves). Due to its great magnitude, the brain drain—Farar-e Maghz-ha (literally “the escape of brains’) has become a major concern and subject of public debate on the one hand and a vital matter in Iran’s international relations on the other. While there are no reliable official statistics on this wave’s migrants, online research (Krever 2017), an awareness of Iran’s domestic socio- political and economic situation, and engagement with the Iranian society offer us eye-opening information on the public view on the brain drain.

During my past three trips to Iran in March and September of 2018 and 2019, I was bombarded with questions on how to gain admissions into US educational institutions. Nearly all of my encounters eventually led to inquiries on how to apply for graduate schools or sign up for the Green Card lottery. While other destinations in Asia and Europe are also desired, the US is the most appealing to the brightest graduates, particularly those of Iran’s MIT, “Sharif University

of Technology,” Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, and other reputable institutions of higher education which admit the most intelligent youth and offer totally or nearly free education.7

Considering its devastatingly large scale, the brain drain has become a threatening issue for Iran not only because the future population of the country will be relatively old as the youth are abandoning the homeland but also due to the financial loss it imposes. Training educated and skilled workers is time-consuming and expensive. The large departure of Iranian professionals has resulted in a damaging national loss of educated elites whose knowledge and expertise contribute to the society’s well being, productivity, and progress. The US, however, has benefitted greatly from the influx of Iranian professionals working in fields as diverse as medicine, education, and engineering.8 Moreover, in recent years the number of immigrating

Iranian intellectuals and artists (including journalists, authors, painters, musicians, graphists, fashion designers, and sculptors) has increased due to restrictions on and censorship of artistic activities in Iran. The immigration of these artists has contributed to other social, cultural, and artistic aspects of life in the American society.

As one of the most suppressed groups in Iran, many musicians started to leave the country in the 2000s’ brain drain wave. A majority of underground alternative musicians migrated to the West during this period in response to strict governmental control over music production and performance as well as threats, arrests and trials for unlawful musical activities

7 Chiachian (2011: 25) discusses the rising the number of students as a sizable portion of Iranian refuges in the aftermath of 2009 presidential election. He quotes Hamid Dabashi, an Iranian American professor at Colombia University, saying that students’ inquiry to come to the USA in 2009 was “more than 20 times the rate of previous years,” and that it was “mind-boggling how many extremely accomplished young people were trying to come abroad” (ibid.).

8 According to the US Institute of International Education (IIE), “In 2015/16, the United States hosted 15,453 international students and 2,136 international scholars from the six countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) named in Executive Order 13780.” These international students, with a majority in the graduate level, comprise 1.5 percent of all international students and contribute an estimated 496 million dollars to the US economy each year (Institute of International Education 2017: 13).

on the one hand and losing hope for securing official permits for their music and a lawful way to earn incomes for their professional music-making on the other.9 While official permits were granted to performers of Persian art and folk music as well as a certain group of popular music artists and bands upon meticulous inspection of lyrical contents and musical features (rejecting songs with political commentary or Western elements deemed decadent such as distorted electric guitars or unconventional singing styles like shouting), permit requests for the production of western genres such as rock, blues, jazz and hip-hop musicians’ were denied (Goli 2014;

Robertson 2012). Although musicians had faced governmental hostility since the revolution, the situation got progressively exacerbated with the empowerment of hardliners and Ahmadinejad in the office (between 2005-2013). Consequently, a large number of alternative musicians working in the undergrounds left Iran.

Establishing themselves as independent artists, these self-exiled musicians began to shape a transnational music scene that brought together the Iranian youth at home and in diaspora.

Having large fan bases among educated and elite Iranian youths, these new diasporic musicians began to create new sounds, voice the young generation’s concerns, and speak to the experiences of a different group of Iranian migrants. In contrast to mainstream popular music stars of the

1980s (many of whom had secured professional careers and stardom prior to the revolution and left Iran with enormous financial capital and the support of Iranian exilic music industry, media and large audiences in diaspora), the young alternative musicians have had to establish musical careers as independent entrepreneurs. Years of covert, unlawful musical activities in Iran had restricted them to a particular youth-oriented group of devoted audiences with unique (counter-

9 Alternative (counter-mainstream) musicians work with independent record labels and have more autonomy in their musical choices. They produce avant-garde and unconventional musical works. Chapter 3 provides in-depth discussions on Persian alternative and mainstream music scenes and musical activities in exile.

mainstream fusion and rock-oriented) tastes in music. With the relocation of a large population of young Iranians to the US in the 2000s (during the brain drain phase), alternative musicians expanded their audience into the Iranian diaspora. The brain drain of young Iranians led to the rejuvenation and diversification of the US-based Iranian community and its music scenes.

In my examination of Persian popular music scenes in the US, I focus on the musical practices of the self-exiled, formerly-underground, musicians whose music ranges from rock, blues, jazz, and hip-hop to a wide variety of fusions. Labeling them as alternative musicians

(Musician hã-ye mostaghel) and examining their musical products and activities in relation to the exiled (mainstream) musicians of the 1980s in Chapter 3, I elucidate how brain drain migrants interact with the older generation of Iranian emigrants and cast light on intracommunal power struggles that mark the Iranian diaspora.

Diaspora

Prior to proceeding to the examination of musical practices, it is important to first address the theoretical framework of diaspora, what it entails, and how it informs my analysis and understanding of the Iranian community as I explore migrants’ musical activities and notions of identity and collectivity. Derived from the Greek verb speiro (to sow) and the preposition dia

(over) (Cohen 1997: ix), the word diaspora is defined, at its broadest, as the dispersion of a group of people from an original homeland to different destinations (Butler 2001: 189). While the concept was initially linked to the dispersal of Jewish, Armenian, Greek, and African peoples, after the 1980s the term has been extended to refer to a wide range of displaced people including refugees, immigrants, and expatriates. Mass movements of people fueled by geopolitical repartitioning, warfare, and restructuring of the global economy and facilitated by communication and transportation technologies have led to a proliferation of diaspora populations (ibid. 190). Whether used by the displaced people themselves or having been

conferred upon them, the prevalence of the term diaspora has made it a “metaphoric designation”

(Safran 1991: 83) and consequently, difficult to define.

While in the last few decades the term diaspora has been more generally used to refer to a variety of dispersed groups including overseas communities, exile groups, and ethnic and racial minorities (Tölöyan 1996:3), the notion has often been associated with exile as in Jewish and

African cases (Turino 2004). Highlighting the diversity of the conceptions of diaspora throughout history—from signifying expansion and colonization to forcible dispersal of a people— (1997: 25), Cohen offers a list of commonly shared features based on William Safran’s paradigm. To Safran (1991: 83-4), the defining characteristics of diasporas include: 1) dispersion from an original center to two or more locations, 2) collective memory and myth about the homeland, 3) perceived sense of alienation and exclusion from the host country, 4) idealization of the ancestral homeland and hope for return, 5) continuous relationship with the homeland, and

6) shared commitment to the maintenance of the homeland.

To Safran’s diaspora paradigm, Cohen adds a temporal dimension (maintenance of ties to the homeland and a block to assimilation over time), the existence of ethnocommunal consciousness, and recognition of positive impacts of retaining a diasporic identity (1997: 24-

25). Among these various definitions, the three basic and commonly agreed upon diaspora features are 1) a dispersal to a minimum of two destinations, 2) an ongoing relationship with the actual or imagined homeland, and 3) ethnonational consciousness that binds the scattered people not only to the homeland but also to each other (Butler 2001: 192). Although this ‘checklist’ of features provides a basis for defining and discussing diaspora formations, it is important to note that not all features exist in all diasporas. Moreover, as Butler avers, such checklists encourage monolithic and fixed notions of diasporan identity and may lead to an essentializing ethnic label

rather than a framework of analysis (2001: 193). Besides, the framework of diaspora uses differentiation as a defining tool and means of identification. Describing a diaspora by what it is not imposes the role of “the other” on the diasporan and leads to further “otherization” and alienation of displaced groups.

Considering the limitations of the term, Butler proposes using diaspora not as a definitive theory but “a framework for the study of a specific process of community formation” (ibid.194).

Underlining the unique features of diasporas which distinguish them from other communities of displaced people such as nomads and migrants (2001: 194), Butler designates five dimensions of diasporan research according to which each diaspora should be examined: 1) motives for, and circumstances of, dispersion, 2 relationships with the home and 3) hostlands, 4) intracommunal relationships, and 5) comparative studies of diverse diasporas. If a group does not encompass the first four dimensions, Butler argues (ibid. 195), it is not a diaspora but a different type of community.

The examination of the US-based Iranian community according to Safran’s model shows that it encompasses the three basic features of diasporas. Iranians have dispersed from a central location to diverse destinations across the world. They have retained linkages with the motherland through visits, culture (cultural festivities and food), heritage, and the arts (literature, handcrafts, and music in particular Persian mainstream popular music) over time. Furthermore,

Iranians have maintained and strengthened ethnonational consciousness that binds them to each other transnationally and creates a sense of solidarity in hostlands. Additionally, the analysis of

Iranian diaspora based on Butler’s five dimensions of diasporan research reveals that there have been a variety of economic, socio-cultural, and political reasons for the dispersion of Iranians

which has consequently resulted in varied conditions for the dispersal and settlement in new countries.

Moreover, Iranians have formed dissimilar and changing relationships with the home and host countries in response to shifting socio-political climates. At different phases throughout the history, Iranians left the homeland either voluntarily or forcibly. They have shown varying degrees of interest and reluctance toward a home return and have confronted hospitable and hostile host societies. For example, while Iranians initially belonged to a welcomed and appreciated group of migrants due to Shah’s favorable relationship with the US government of the time (1960s-70s), they faced antagonistic responses from the host country’s government and society in the aftermath of the hostage-crisis of 1979. The highly diverse Iranian diaspora is governed by complex intracommunal relationships and power struggles stemming from political views, economic standings, and class differences. While the increasingly growing and exceedingly diverse community of Iranians has faced dramatic transformations over the past decades, particularly since the Islamic revolution of 1979, it still demonstrates the existence of key aspects of diasporic formations and can be properly identified as a diaspora.

Today, the worldwide population of the Iranian diaspora is estimated as two to four million people (Tavakol 2012: 164) (see figure 2-1). The exact size of the US Iranian Diaspora, however, remains unknown due to various factors that hinder conducting reliable statistical research including the fear of being labeled as Iranian because of the antagonistic atmosphere of the US over the past few decades. Moreover, the US census form is confusing in the way it identifies ancestry, race, and ethnicity (Fata and Rafii 2003: 4). According to the US Census, the

Iranian-American community is estimated to be around 330,000 (ibid.). The Iranian Interest

Section in Washington, DC, however, rejects this number claiming to have passport information

for approximately 900,000 Iranians in the US (ibid.) (See Figures 2-2 and 2-3 for more information on the US Iranian population and type of visas issued between 1990-2004).10 The current number given by Virtual US Embassy estimates the nationwide population of Iranians as

500,000 to 1 million, with the largest concentration in Los Angeles in 2018. Such a large and diverse community defies monolithic labeling based on Cohen’s 1997 topology of diasporas. It can thus be best described as a community inclusive of cultural, trade, and victim diasporic groups.

Transnationalism and Diaspora

Transnationalism at its broadest is an “umbrella concept for some of the most globally transformative processes and developments of our time” (Vertovec 2009: 12). The difference between transnational and international is that the latter refers to the interactions between nation- states while the former signifies continued connections and exchanges across national borders

(ibid. 3). Dispersing from a center to multiple destinations (Butler 2001; Safran 1991), diasporas are inherently transitional social formations whose members exist across at least two geographically, culturally, and politically-bounded notions of place. Exile, closely associated with the notion of diaspora, also exists at the intersection of multiple locations. While there is no universality for the globally exiled, exile is a universal category that cuts across geographical cultural boundaries (Naficy 1993: 3). Unlike diasporic members, exilic groups build relationships based on a shared imaginary construction [the state of being displaced] rather than originary facts of nationality, race, biology, or color (1993: 2).

10 See Bozorgmehr and Sabagh (1988) for more detailed accounts of the US-based Iranian population. While the data is outdated, it can offer some insights on trends and transformations.

Following Nacify’s classification, the state of exile is thus an intrinsically transnational discursive construct. The Iranian diaspora, with a remarkable population of (self) exiled members, is a transnational social formation scattered across the world.

Contemporary diasporic groups have experiences and identities that transcend national boundaries and thus cannot be studied and understood without acknowledging transnational linkages. As Glick-Schiller et al. highlight (1992b), the image of immigrants abandoning old patterns, getting uprooted, and acquiring new culture and languages no longer represents the totality of immigrant experiences. New types of migrants develop and maintain multiple relations (familial, economic, political, social, and religious) across borders and foster identities within social fields that connect them to two or more societies (Glick-Schiller et al. 1992b: 2).

Glick-Schiller et al. introduce the concept of “transnationalism” to describe the experience of the

“transmigrants” (1992b: 1).

The term “transnational” was initially used to describe corporations that have simultaneous financial operations and organizational presence in several countries. The growth of transnational corporations in the 20th century accompanied by large relocation of populations led to an expansion of the meaning of the term “transnational” to refer to migrating populations with simultaneous presence in two or more societies and the relations they establish (ibid. 2).

Arriving in the new countries of residence with unique cultural practices, class affiliations and political views, transmigrants engage in complex activities across national boundaries. They shape and transform multiple transnational identities in response to their multifaceted simultaneous positioning in several social fields to cope with difficult circumstances they face in transnational spaces (ibid. 4-5). As Tölölyan underscores (1991: 5), modern diasporas are “the exemplary communities of the transnational moment.”

Since its emergence in migration studies in the 1990s, the concept of transnationalism has inspired new questions about the integration of migrants in societies of settlement (Faist 2010:

12). While the term diaspora refers to a community or group, the concept of transnationalism is used to describe more abstract phenomena and processes that transcend borders (Faist 2010: 13).

In contrast to diaspora studies that mainly focus on cultural distinctiveness and its application to concepts such as nationhood, transnational studies concentrate on issues of mobility and networks (Faist 2010: 17). The concept of the “transnational social field” has emerged to define the spaces within which migrants engage in a variety of activities across international boundaries. Existing across borders of nation-states, transnational social fields encompass migrants’ everyday activities including political participation in both origin and host countries, transfer of cultural practices, and solidarity within kinship networks (Faist 2010: 11). The consumption and production of Persian popular music are also significant activities taking place in the transnational social field of diaspora.

The movement of media images and cultural items, labeled as “cultural flows” by

Hannezr (1989), is a significant aspect of transnationalism. Transcending national, cultural, and geographical boundaries, transnational cultural flows not only feed transmigrants’ identities and experiences but are most importantly shaped by them. Arguing against the notion of an inevitable march toward the global homogenization of culture, Hannerz asserts that the diffusion of cultural ideas and goods does not always flow from the powerful core to the periphery (ibid.).

People, particularly migrants, are engaged in creative reinterpretations of hybridity, mixture and

“creolization.” Transnational migrants play key roles in the concurrent movement of networks, cultural goods and activities, and the constant reconstruction of relationships and identities.

As Glick-Schiller et al. rightfully observe (1992b: 11), in order to grasp a better understanding of modern-day migrants we should not merely focus on the circulation of ideas and materials. Rather, we must pay attention to the fact that material goods (and cultural ideas) are themselves embedded in social relations. The flow of activities, goods, and ideas influence social relations and their meaning within the flow and the daily life. As a result of transnational cultural flows, linkages between different societies are retained, renewed, and reconstituted and impact social structures, political institutions, and economic investments (ibid. 11).

Living within a complex web of social relations, transmigrants construct and maintain fluid and diverse identities that link them simultaneously to multiple locations and nations. Thus, transmigrants’ notions of self draw on a multiplicity of sources at home, in the host country, and the wider transnational community. In the host nation alone, transmigrants’ identities and experiences are shaped by 1) their homeland’s position within the global racial order, 2) internal class differentiations within the racial group to which they are assigned, and 3) cultural distinctions within their ascribed racial group (Glick-Schiller et al. 1992b: 18).

Nonwhite immigrants in the US are constantly, and unevenly, subjected to two processes of normalization: “an ideological whitening or blackening” reflective of dominant racial conflicts and “an assessment of cultural competence” based on ascribed human capital and consumer power (Ong 1996: 737). Struggling with alienation and exclusion inflicted by state agencies, institutions, and groups in civil society, immigrants from Asia and poorer nations are influenced by processes of citizen-making imposed on them by transnational capitalism. As Ong further highlights (ibid.), “depending on their locations in the global economy, some immigrants of color have greater access than others to key institutions in state and civil society.” Global citizenship

may assist the immigrant to scale cultural and racial heights but does not help them to evade racial hierarchies in host countries.

Academic attempts to provide theoretical frameworks for studies of migration and migrant populations have contributed to such processes of migrants’ normalization; leading to more problematic and reductive conceptions of the displaced with the creation of certain metaphors of assimilation such as the ‘melting pot’ and the ‘salad bowl.’ The melting pot implies the socio-cultural and economic assimilation of migrants into the dominant society. The salad bowl, or the cultural mosaic theory, recognizes diversity as it involves the integration of diverse ethnicities and connotes a benign pluralism (Naficy 1993: 3). In the salad bowl notion, migrants who choose to stick to their own cultures and reject assimilation are confined in their own ethnic enclaves and exist on the margins of the dominant society (Mata 2007: 7). The postmodern celebration of multiculturalism is another attempt to rework the melting pot ideology suggesting conformism and an attitude of tolerance. As Naficy shrewdly observes (1993: 4), the problem with all of these metaphors is that they neglect the existence of hierarchy among minority groups and in relation to dominant groups.

In order to analyze, understand, and describe the complexity of transmigrants’ identities, who continually draw on concepts of nationalism, race, ethnicity, and class within and across the context of home and host countries, we need to recognize and reject both explicit and implicit racial and cultural rankings. As a new field of social relations, transnationalism provides a framework for the examination of action and meaning both within and between nation-states and in response to the terms and conditions imposed by nation-states. Analyzing transnational flows of objects and ideas in relation to their social location, and how they are utilized by the transmigrants, allows us to view migrants as culturally creative actors and explore their

experiences and identities. Moreover, such enquiry informs our perception of transmigrants’ impact on both countries of origin and residence in varied socio-cultural, political, and economic domains.

Furthermore, the examination of transnational cultural practices helps avoid

“methodological nationalism” (Wimmer and Glick-Schiller 2002), which is one of the problematic aspects of migration studies. Conceiving national borders as equivalent to societal boundaries and consequently mixing the concept of nation-state with that of society, migration scholars often engage in methodological nationalism that essentializes migrants as the ‘other;’ and thus perceive and depict them as not fitting in the dominant society and disrupting social solidarity (Faist 2010: 24). Glick-Schiller (2010) offers a global power perspective as an alternative to methodological nationalism to cast light on the mutual constitution of the local, national and the global. Such perspective, Glick-Schiller claims, informs our analysis of migrants’ role as opponents or supporters of neo-liberal restructuration, and how their transnational ties enable them to contribute to local development. She calls for further research to examine how migrants themselves negotiate their ways beyond boundaries of states of emigration and immigration. This examination of Iranian diaspora and its musical activities pays attention to migrants’ roles in constructing and enhancing transnational ties. Highlighting the transnational nature of the Iranian diaspora, this study examines how Iranian migrants use their transnational ties and musical activities to go beyond geographical, socio-cultural, and national boudnaries in their construction and negotiaton of self and collectivity. The transnational nature of exilic Persian popular music empowers Iranian migrants to create a collectivity through musical activities and reflect on their translocal and transnational life in diaspora.

Migrants’ musical practices can be used as enlightening gateways to understanding transmigrants’ navigation of fluid global boundaries and capacity for strategic interventions in the context of migration. Examination of diasporic musical practices can profoundly enhance our perception of migrants’ agency, and how they circumvent nation-states boundaries to establish transnational social spaces. Moreover, the exploration of musical expressions diversifies our methodological toolboxes for studying transnational and diasporic formations empirically without falling into the trap of methodological nationalism. Utilizing sonic parameters (rhythm, mode, key, timbre, harmony, etc.) and textual signs (iconic, indexical, and symbolic language) as well as elements of performance (facial expression, posture and body motion), music is key in expressing and signifying transnational diasporic identities that are composite of distinct locations, social groups, and experiences (Turino 2004: 17).

Focusing on migrating musicians and musical forms benefits migration studies in multiple ways. First, examining the role and impact of musicians within transnational networks of global migration allows us to move beyond seeing migrants as victims or as socio-cultural and economic burdens on the receiving society (Kiwan and Meinhof 2012: 4). Migrant musicians are often highly educated as is the case with most Iranian alternative musicians. Taking advantage of their “transcultural capital,” they are capable of turning their musical passions and talents into professions and earn incomes from multiple locations (Meinhof 2009; Meinhof and

Triandafyllidou 2006) by selling music and touring globally. Furthermore, empowered by their mobility and further access and exposure to global popular music, migrant musicians acquire agency which enables them to contribute to artistic and cultural development of home and host countries as well as the transnational diasporic community. Focusing on the transnational dimensions of diasporas also helps us study people’s interactions in transnational spaces

irrespective of ethnicity, origin, and nationality and avoid the dangers of “methodological nationalism.”

Developed by Meinhof and Triandafyllidou (2006) based on Bourdieu’s notion of cultural or symbolic capital (Bourdieu and Wacquant 2002), “transcultural capital theory” describes the multidimensional and diverse capital of migrants. As a heuristic concept, transcultural capital informs the description and analysis of migrant musicians’ maintenance of multiple links and how they use them as creative forces. The concept of transcultural capital helps us to go beyond the ethnic boundaries and examine migrating musicians and musical forms in light of their multiple ties in a transnational field. While at times, migrant musicians may draw on their ethnic capital, at other times they may utilize their positions in transnational cosmopolitan contexts in their creative activities.

Importing substantial cultural capital to the country of settlement, maintaining links with their respective diasporas, and adopting multiple strategies to reach a wide-ranging audience, migrant musicians frequently exercise transnational agency. Additionally, their imported capital as well as the social capital they gain in the country of settlement create many opportunities for recordings, shows, and festivals. Thus, social and cultural capital translate into economic capital in the context of migration (ibid.). Their sustained links with “home” also generate creative and economic prospects for artists in the homeland. Transcultural capital thus has a cyclical dimension, which provides migrant musicians with numerous opportunities within and beyond the diaspora (ibid. 9). A perfect example demonstrating the transnational ties between Iranian alternative musicians in diaspora and musicians at home is the collabrotaions between fusion singer and musician Hamed Nikpay who lives in LA and singer, composer and arranger Pedram

Azad who resides in Tehran. Through their transnational collaborations, both artists have

diversified their musical outputs, reached to new audience, and expanded the dissemination of their work by bringing two fan bases together.

As widely-scattered and powerful components of transnational cultural flows, musical practices simultaneously impact and are shaped by not only transmigrants’ identities and experiences but also by the social relations embedded in transnational fields. Transnational communities are culturally and artistically linked to two or more distinct locations. Transnational interactions and transcultural capital of transmigrants enable them to enhance cross-cultural communication through expressive arts. Diasporic musical practices and products, as in the case of exilic Persian popular music, not only transfer cultural ideas, expressions and notions of self, and collective diasporic identities, but also take on new meanings. In the context of the homeland, they act as communicative devices between the displaced nationals and those in the homeland. On the one hand, they provide information about ways of life and diverse worldviews in different settings. On the other, they reshape and renegotiate homeland and diaspora relationships. Whether attempting to preserve the national culture or introduce new cultural ideas

(or a combination of both), the sending and receiving agents engage in complex processes of reinterpretation, mixture and creolization.11

On the stylistic level, MM and MLA blend various musical elements of Western popular music such as instrumentation and harmony with melodic patterns, musical instruments, rhythmic features, and vocal techniques identified with Persian folklore and (mostly in the case

11 As an inherently transnational musical genre, K-pop is a prime example to demonstrate the complexity of transnational musical activities and products. Having appeared as an export-oriented product aimed at Japanese and Chinese-speaking youth (Fuhr 286), K-pop developed as a transnational music genre due to economic factors forcing it to target foreign markets. A highly eclectic music, K-pop blends diverse genres, styles, and techniques on aural, linguistic, visual, and performative levels. Hybridity, translocality, stylistic mixtures, and fusion of Korean and Western elements highlight K-pop’s transnational makeup as its salient feature (ibid.). In this sense, K-pop resembles Persian exilic alternative (MM) and mainstream music (MLA).

of MM) Persian art music. On the textual level, MLA uses English, Spanish, Arabic, and at times

Indian lyrics to diversify the lyrical contents (examples can be found in songs by Sasy Mankan,

Shahram Shabpareh, Martik, Googoosh, and Leila Forouhar). In the MM scene, textual mixtures mostly appear in the form of cover versions of works featuring non-Iranian musicians such as

Mohsen Namjoo’s collaboration with the Italian quartet Faraualla and Hamed Nikpay’s collaboration with Israeli-Spanish singer-songwriter Yasmin Levy. On the industrial level, both

MLA and MM disseminate their output across sundry media platforms including television and radio, live concerts, and most importantly the Internet.

Utilizing their transcultural capital attained through ties to multiple locations and interactions with diverse cultures, Iranian migrant musicians claim their agency by creating new sounds and transforming their musical skills to financial capital through performances and recordings. Developed within a transnational field in light of the vast migration of musicians and fans, Persian popular music has become increasingly hybrid and syncretic. Iranian musicians active in the transnational space of Persian diasporic music scene produce innovative music to convey new messages reflective of their socio-political, cultural, and emotional ties across boundaries of nation-state. Through musical borrowing and mixing as well as global collaborations with musicians of Iranian and non-Iranian heritage, diasporic Persian popular has attemped to preserve its cultural and artistic roots in the homeland while simultaneously inetarcting with and learning from othe agents in the transnationl space of diaspora. Self-exiled musician Mohsen Namjoo, for instance, reflects on his diasporic existence through his eclective musical outputs. Taking advantage of his transcultural capital (knowledge of both Persian art and folklore and American popular music) and transnational socio-cultural ties to Iranians at home

and in diaspora, Namjoo has become a successful musician performing around the world for large Iranian and international audiences.12

Exilic Persian popular music brings together disparate musical, textual and performing elements from the eclectic pre-revolutionary Persian popular music, varied genres of Western, mainly American, popular music such as hip-hop and rock, Persian art and folklore music, flamenco, Indian and Arab music within a single coherent artistic form. Doing so, both MLA and

MM represent a multifaceted Iranian diasporic identity by indexing Iran, the US and the transnationally scattered Iranian diaspora. Despite differences in receiving agents, musical practices, and products, MLA and MM are similar in the way they distinguish diasporic Iranians from the dominant American society by putting emphasis on and adhering to the symbols of

Iranian culture while simultaneously connecting them to American and global cultures. The indexical combinations of Persian, Western, and other non-Iranian genres of popular music signify the components of the Iranian transnational diasporic identity. As diasporic identities undergo constant transformations, so do musical creations.

Conclusion

The discussion on diaspora paradigm in this chapter reveals that diasporic formations (as constructed identity units based on discourses and signs of similarity and ethnicity) are dependent on the existence of a homeland and a sense of marginalization in host countries

(Safran 1991: 83; Turino 2004: 5). The discursive importance of a homeland, whether symbolic or concrete, differentiates diasporas from other dispersed communities such as cosmopolitan cultural formations, which share the trait of dispersal but not the recognition of an original homeland (Turino 2004: 5). Likewise, the multi-sited nature of diasporas distinguishes them

12 Chapter 3 further discusses the hybrid nature of Persian popular music.

from other immigrant communities which are in binary relationships with their homelands.

Spanning multiple nation-states boundaries, dispersed diasporic formations construct a common socio-cultural identification around the symbol of “home” that bonds them away from the motherland and creates solidarity particularly in antagonistic societies of settlement (ibid. 6).

A sense of alienation and marginalization in hostlands is another key marker of diasporic existence. While certain diasporas have been/are discriminated against in various contexts, the relation between diasporic groups and host countries is rather circular. Feeling alienated and marginalized, diasporic groups tend to subjectively separate themselves from the dominant society and stay confined within their own cultural formations. Simultaneously however, the transnational nature of diasporas empowers them to draw on a plurality of sources in representing and articulating identities and forming a multiplicity of ties within the transnational spaces they create. Consequently, diasporic formations are marked by increased hybridity that results from their manifold transnational affiliations. The postcolonial concept of hybridity, intensified with transnational links, problematizes the dominant concept of ethnicity as “the idea of naturalized group identity” (Appadurai 1996: 13) and diaspora’s reliance on the “ethnic group” as the fundamental aspect of the diasporic community” (Ang 2003: 10). Hybridity thus rejects the essentialized readings of diasporic groups.

The notion of diaspora has been helpful to “comprehend the dynamics of identity and belonging constituted between poles of geography and genealogy” (Gilroy 1997: 327). In the case of Iranians, the concept of diaspora as a widely scattered group of people dispersed from an original homeland to multiple destinations across the globe with enduring ties with the homeland over generations provides an illuminating framework to investigate their experience of displacement, hybridity, and difference. For Iranians, diasporic existence is closely tied to the

concept of the homeland as origin. Iranian history, culture, and forms of art such as poetry, literature, and music hold significant influence on individual and collective identity no matter labeled as Persian or Iranian. As a diasporic transnational community established and maintained across geopolitical boundaries based on a notion of collective homeland, its culture, heritage, and history, the Iranian diaspora has utilized expressive arts to transcend boundaries. With the establishment and growth of Persian popular music scene in exile, Iranian diaspora deals with two interrelated meanings of transnationalism; as a mode of hybrid and syncretic cultural production, tastes, aesthetics and styles and as manifold linkages connecting people across nation-state boundaries (Zheng 2010: 12).

Since geographical location no longer functions as social boundary, the very existence of diasporic communities is dependent on expressive cultural practices (Turino 2004: 4).

Deterritorialized musical products and producers play fundamental roles in the construction of an image of a geographically scattered yet unified group. Bringing home and host societies into the single social field of transnational diasporic community, Iranians have constructed notions of collectivity through engaging in sundry activities and forming networks, identities, cultural traits, and patterns of life that cut across national boundaries. As a pair, the exilic subscenes of Persian popular music, MLA and MM, have been utilized by diasporic Iranians to maintain ties to the host and home countries and create intracommunal senses of solidarity. In response to the challenging multiplicity of religious and political views as well as ethnocultural differences within the Iranian population, those in diaspora have utilized commonly-shared aspects of

Iranian culture and arts (particularly Persian popular music) to strengthen collective identity across boundaries.

Playing a central role in enacting collective and individual identity, Persian popular music has been widely produced and consumed in the transnational space between the homeland and the diaspora. The increasingly expanding transnational dimension of musical activities and practices in Persian popular music has empowered diasporic Iranians to transcend differences and distance and express multiple notions of Iranianness. (Self-) exiled Iranian musicians’ transcultural capital (particularly in the case of MM musicians) has empowered them to move beyond ethnic boundaries, convert their socio-cultural capital into economic capital, and use their transnational ties and musical talents to secure a wide-ranging fan base at home and in diaspora.

Projecting a wide range of shifting subject positions, MLA and MM are highly influential in continuing dialogues about being Iranian under distinct conditions across home and the diaspora.

Drawing on theoretical foundations of diaspora, this chapter claims that Iranians in the

US have formed a transnational diasporic community over the past four decades. As a heterogenous community of exiles, refugees, immigrants, and students coming from various walks of life with diverse ethnolinguistic, religious, and political affiliations, the Iranian diaspora complicates Cohen’s clear-cut typology. The historical examination of Iranian migration establishes that various groups have emigrated to the US with different reasons and under dissimilar conditions. While the exiles of the revolution and refugees of the war can be labeled as members of a victim diaspora, the group that relocated during the brain drain phase can be described as labor (highly educated, skilled and professional) and cultural diasporas. Therefore, the US Iranian diaspora can be best characterized as an amalgamation of labor, victim and cultural diasporas.

Studying music in the context of migration encourages new thoughts on the intersection between culture and locality, local and global dichotomy, and globalization and human agency.

Having established the historical background for the emergence of an Iranian diaspora, Chapter 3 discusses the establishment and transformation of two subscenes of exilic Persian popular music in relation to two waves of Iranian migration— that of the 1980s’ (the fourth) and the brain drain

(the fifth) (Table 2-1).

Table 2-1. Different Waves of Iranian Migration. Wave When Who Why Destination First Early 19th Mine workers Poverty and war Russia century and farmers Second Mid-19th Religious Governmental Turkey, Egypt, century minorities, suppression France, Germany, intellectuals and and England followers of Bábism Third Between 1921- Students and Pursuit of higher Western Europe 1979 professionals education under and North the impact of America, mainly Pahlavi Shahs’ the US industrialization and modernization policies Fourth Between 1979- Various groups Revolution, Diverse locations, the late 1980s of people change of from Turkey to including regime, war Sweden, France, political Germany, and the activists, US aristocrats, artists (pre-rev. musicians), supporters of the Shah, his employees and military staff Fifth Early 2000s- Highly educated political Western Europe, present and professional oppression, North America, youths (Brain censorship, and Australia, Turkey, Drain) economic Cyprus, and the difficulties UAE

Figure 2-1. Iranian Immigrants Admitted to the United States, Canada, Germany, the UK and Sweden: 1961 to 2005, (Tavakol 2012: 164).

Figure 2-2. Iranian-Born Immigrants Admitted to the United States, 1970 to 2004. Source: Source: US Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, 1970-2004 (Hakimzadeh and Dixon 2006:2-3).

Figure 2-3. Nonimmigrant Visas Issued to Iranian Nationals, 2000 to 2005 (Hakimzadeh and Dixon 2006: 3).

CHAPTER 3 IRANIAN POPULAR MUSIC SCENES IN EXILE

On July 8th, 2018, I attended a show by MM (Musiqi-ye Mostaghel, “alternative music”) musician, Erwin Khachikian and his band in a cozy bar in San Francisco. There was a small audience, mostly Iranian musicians and local artists in their thirties to forties with only a few people of the older generation. The friendly atmosphere astounded me as, in my experience, it is very uncommon for Iranians to say hi or engage in small talks with other Iranians they have never met before. This was among the very few Iranian gatherings in which I felt welcome and included. Shadi and Ardalan from the alternative band Eendo spotted and greeted us and introduced us to a number of musicians and artists including the members of the San Fransisco based Afghan rock band Kabul Dreams. A few MM managers and several famous MM musicians in the audience were having conversations with fans prior to the show. People seemed to know each other. It appeared that most people have been attending similar events for some time as they hugged, talked, and drank together while the musicians were getting ready to perform.

Some of the people in attendance recognized my husband (who used to be an underground rock musician in Iran) and talked to him about his musical career in the US, which indicated that the audience and musicians were knowledgeable about Iran’s Underground Music scene. As the band began to play, a group of non-Iranians also joined the audience. Some people crowded around the musicians and sat on the floor (Figure 3-11). Soon others were invited to sit down as well. This was an entirely different kind of musical experience compared to all the

MLA (Musiqi-ye losanjelesi, “Music of Los Angeles”) concerts I had attended. My observations inspired me to formulate new questions based on the types of musical activities, intracommunal

relations, consumption behaviors, and the notions of stardom present in the exilic Persian popular music scenes of MLA and MM.

Addressing those questions, this chapter provides a detailed history and ethnographic descriptions of these two subscenes that form a dialectic pair within the field of Iranian popular music in exile. I begin with a discussion of the emergence of the mainstream MLA (Musiqi-ye losanjelesi), its roots in pre-revolutionary Persian popular music, main figures, musical elements and lyrical contents, production, performance practice, and position in the diasporic context.

Then, I examine the burgeoning, youth-oriented , MM (Musiqi-ye Mostaghel), which emerged during the second largest influx of Iranians (known as the Brain Drain) in the 2000s. Similar to my treatment of MLA, I then describe musical characteristics, production, distribution, and performative aspects of MM. Examined from a musical scene perspective, I cast light on the transformation of and dynamic relationship between these two (sub)scenes of Iranian popular music. The description of MLA and MM provide a basis for the discussion on identity negotiation, processes of identification and disidentification, and strategic acts of boundary making among the US-based Iranian emigrants in Chapter 4.

Before explaining the theoretical framework of music scene, it is important to elucidate the complex network of Iranian popular music produced in the US. Iranian musical activities in the US can be divided into three main conceptual categories: 1) Persian traditional or art music,

2) folk music, and 3) popular music; each having distinct contexts, producers, practices, and markets.1 While the dominant language used in all three categories is Persian/Farsi—thus labeling them as “Persian music”—there are other languages including Arabic, Azeri, and

1 Terms for Persian traditional music (Musiqi-ye Sonnati) or art music (Musiqi-ye Asil) are also used interchangeably among Iranians.

Kurdish as well as several ethnic dialects such as Gilaki and Khorãsãni used in the folk category.

Here, in accordance with the existing scholarship, I use the descriptors Iranian and Persian interchangeably to refer to various types of music produced and consumed by people of Iranian heritage regardless of the language used. Figure 3-1 provides an overview of the features of different types of Iranian/Persian music produced and consumed in the US.

While these different categories of Persian music have distinct contexts, surrounding discourses, producing and consuming agents, and differences in sound, content, and form, there is also much overlap and borrowing among these musics. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in fusing Persian art music with elements from both Persian popular and other non-Iranian (mainly Western) styles of music. Notably, the young generation of musicians that have received training in traditional music have combined various elements, styles, and techniques from popular and traditional music to create new fusions.2

For example, Homayoun Shajarian, the son of Iranian vocal maestro Mohammad Reza

Shajarian (Nooshin 2001), has taken steps toward introducing and popularizing such fusions in collaboration with Sohrab and Kioumars Pournazeri. In diaspora, multi-instrumentalist and experimental musician, Hamed Nikpay, has used his mastery of Persian traditional music to produce new forms of Persian fusion with the incorporation of diverse non-Iranian styles such as flamenco, hip-hop, and trap/electronic dance music. His latest song— “Mar Jange” in collaboration with hip-hop artist Erfan and trap music artist Danny Asadi—is a great example of such fusion. Renowned MM artist, Mohsen Namjoo, is also known for his innovative mixings of

Persian traditional and folk music (mainly Khorãsãni) with Western genres such as blues and

2 In this dissertation, I use the terms traditional music and art music as synonymous in relation to categories of Persian and Iranian music.

rock.3 Regardless of the blurring of boundaries between the categories, the three main divisions of Iranian music (Art, folk, popular music) continue to exist and influence the musical activities of Iranians in the US. While these music scenes overlap, distinctions remain effective.

Theoretical Framework: Music Scene

The concepts of place, space and locality and their intersection with musical activities have been central concerns for ethnomusicology and popular music studies (Cohen 1999, Keil

1991, Lipsitz 1986, 1988, Shank 1994, Stokes 1994). The dynamic interrelationships between music and place have inspired scholars to propose diverse theoretical models and concepts to explain the complexity of the relationship between the two. From subculture (Bennett 1999;

Clarke 1990) and musical community (Shelemay 2011) to music scene (1991), arts worlds

(Becker 1982) and genre (Hesmondhalgh 2005) various frameworks have been used, praised, critiqued, and rejected since the 1980s. Rejecting the term community as too stable and close- knit and musical network as too disparate and fragmented, Ruth Finnegan, for instance, used the notion of musical “pathways” to convey a sense of music-making as more active and dynamic

(1989). As Gelder and Thornton (1997) note, subculture is also a problematic concept due to its inherent presumption that a society has one commonly shared dominant culture from which the subculture is deviant. Moreover, the term subculture implies that all participants’ actions fall within unified subcultural standards. The scene perspective, however, allows for a focus on transformation and fluidity.

Contrary to the spatially bounded and culturally rooted concepts of “subculture” and

“community,” the notion of music scene emphasizes “the dynamic, shifting, and globally

3 A well-known example is his rendition of the Khorãsãni folk song “Nane Golmammad,” from the album Trust the Tangerine Peel (2014), based on Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NghW32YuzX4.

interconnected nature of musical activity” (Cohen 1999:239). The concept of scene was initially used by journalists in the 1940s to understand the marginal lifes of individuals associated with the world of jazz and was later expanded to other contexts such as poetry scene, theater scene, or goth scene (Bennett and Peterson 2004:2). Since the early 1990s, the concept of scene—first mentioned in academic discourse by Will Straw (1991) —has been primarily adopted by researchers as a model to describe the contexts in which clusters of musicians and fans collectively share their common musical tastes and distinguish themselves from others (ibid.: 1,

3). To Will Straw, a music scene is the “cultural space in which a range of musical practices coexist, interacting with each other within a variety of processes of differentiation and according to widely varying trajectories of change and cross-fertilization” (1991: 373). Drawing on cultural geographers including Doreen Massey (1998), Straw distinguished the stable and geographically rooted notion of community from the notion of scene, which accounts for “processes of historical change occurring within a larger international music culture” (Straw 1991: 373).

A seminal study of music scene is Barry Shank’s Dissonant Identities (1994) which examines various music scenes in Austin, Texas. Shank’s notion of the scene, stemming from

Lacan and feminist theorists Julia Kristeva and Jacqueline Rose, underscores the dynamic and transforming processes through which spectators become musicians, and musicians convert to fans (1994:131). To Shank, the scene plays a key role in the production of music that moves beyond the expression of locally significant cultural values, stylistic permutation, and generic development and toward examining dominant structures of identification and cultural transformation (1994: 122). Contrasting Straw whose view of the scene is concerned with processes of legitimation and cultural prestige, to Shank the concept of the scene stresses the distinction between transformative and marginalized practices and the dominant and mainstream

culture. Other influential studies from the scene perspective include Sara Cohen’s Rock Culture in Liverpool (2000) and Andy Bennett’s Popular Music and Youth Culture (2000) devoted to the study of music scenes developed in distinct locales and shaped to fit local sensibilities.

Conceptualizing MLA and MM as subscenes of Persian popular music, I use Bennett and

Peterson’s tripartite model of music scene types as local, translocal and virtual to shed light on the distinct aspects of each scene. This scene model also helps me explain how individuals construct and sustain scenes as platforms for expressions and negotiations of identity in the

Iranian diaspora. According to Bennett and Peterson (2005: 8), a local music scene encompasses

a focused social activity that takes place in a delimited space and over a specific span of time in which clusters of producers, musicians, and fans realize their common musical taste; collectively distinguishing themselves from others using music and cultural signs often appropriated from other places but recombined and developed in ways that come to represent the local scene.

While the central activity is music, local music scenes also typically involve other elements including a unique style of dancing, a particular range of drugs, a style of dressing, and socio- political stances.

A translocal music scene refers to widely scattered, yet highly interconnected, local scenes, which are in regular communication around certain forms of music and lifestyles (6).

Translocal scenes transcend face-to-face interactions as a necessary requirement for scene membership (Kruse 1993). Interacting with each other by exchanging recordings, bands, musicians, and fans, translocal scenes can be more closely connected to similar scenes in distant places than to other scenes in the same locale (Bennett and Peterson 2005: 9). Such

“transregional” musics, as Slobin calls them (1993: 19), rapidly flourish and become global by taking advantage of mediascapes and new technologies. A music festival is a prime example for translocal music scenes bringing together dispersed individuals in one place to enjoy certain

types of music and its associated styles of life and schools of thought (Bennett and Peterson

2005: 9-10).

The last type of musical scene identified by Bennett and Peterson is the emergent virtual scene in which geographically-separated people form collectivities based on shared musical interest through the use of the Internet (2005: 7). Widely scattered participants in virtual scenes

(as in translocal scenes) come together through online fan clubs, forums, chat rooms, and listservs to exchange information about their favorite artists, performances and productions.

Marjorie Kibby’s study of virtual musical communities devoted to the folk artist John Prine provides a good example for the scholarship on this type of music scene (2000). Unlike local and translocal scenes, which are largely controlled by producing agents, virtual scenes are constructed and governed by fans who trade music online and create spaces dedicated to their needs and interests (Bennett and Peterson 2005: 11).

Bennett and Peterson’s categorization of scenes provides a useful framework for highlighting and analyzing specific aspects of the scenes, activities and membership, yet it is important to note that there are no rigid boundaries between the scenes. In today’s increasingly connected world, local, translocal, and virtual music scenes progressively blend into each other.

Taking the fluidity and overlap between the scenes into consideration, I conceptualize MLA as an initially local—having emerged and developed in LA by pre-revolutionary Persian popular music stars in the 1980s—and then becoming increasingly translocal as producing agents collaborate with musicians in diaspora and at home.

Moreover, MLA stars perform for large populations of Iranians and others across the globe. Particularly around the time of Persian New Year (March), MLA stars have numerous shows in Iran’s neighboring countries including Turkey, UAE, Cyprus, Armenia, Georgia, and

Azerbaijan catered to their fans inside the country. Thus, despite the fact the MLA initially emerged as a local music scene in LA, it gradually expanded its production, dissemination and performance activities around the world. MLA can thus be characterized as an amalgamation of local, translocal, and virtual scenes, although its producing agents are still mainly located in LA.

In contrast, MM emerged as an inherently translocal music scene. Stemming from Iran’s

Underground Music (UM), MM first appeared in diaspora with the large influx of alternative musicians in the 2000s (discussed in Chapter 2). The close linkages between MM and UM have not only established MM as a translocal scene but have influenced its aesthetic and socio-cultural significance (to be discussed in the Chapter 4). The emergence of UM in the late 1990s was part of the relative democratization of the cultural and artistic spheres in post-revolutionary Iran and became a platform for Iranian youth to voice their concerns in a public forum for the first time since the revolution. As Nooshin (2017: 165) notes,

it was the election of reformist President Mohammad Khatami in 1997 and the period of cultural thaw that followed that led to the legalization of certain kinds of popular music and, in tandem, the emergence of a grass-roots “underground” alternative popular music.

Niknafs (2016) describes Iran’s UM scene as one built around the concept of DIY (do-it- yourself), sentiments of anarchism, and creativity, collaboration and friendship. Frequently challenging state-imposed regulations, the UM scene has become a core element in Iran’s music and a platform for change, movement and self-expression. MM’s roots in Iran’s UM have had a significant impact on its production and reception in diaspora. Many MM artists such as Mohsen

Namjoo, Arash Sobhani, and Sara Naieni are former UM musicians and have maintained ties with UM artists. MM musicians who have not been affiliated with the UM scene have formed new collaborative relationships with musicians in Iran’s UM scene. LA based alternative musician Erwin Khachikian, for instance, has collaborated with Iranian UM musicians in the

song “The Stoy of the Undeground” (Yas et al. 2010).4 The translocal ties between MM and UM have been fundamental in both scenes’ musical practices and outputs.

MM’s development as a translocal scene in the Iranian diaspora has been dependent on digital and computer technology which provided new levels of access to high quality production equipment and dissemination processes. Both the UM and MM flourished as DIY music scenes and struggled with the dominant music industries at home (state-approved market and media) and in diaspora (exilic media dominated by MLA). The DIY music production activities and personnel—small collectives and support networks, volunteer labor and fans turned entrepreneurs (Smith and Maughan 1997)—gave rise to grassroots musical scenes and allowed alternative musicians to produce and distribute their music with more autonomy. The relatively inexpensive equipment and accessible state-of-the-art technology democratized the recording process and enabled musicians and producers to create their music without the financial support of record companies.

Furthermore, the rapid development of the Internet in the 1990s empowered MM fans to construct a supportive virtual scene on sundry online platforms including weblogs, forums, and social media to increase fan communication and facilitate file sharing. The Internet has also aided musicians in promoting their recordings and shows without the help of mainstream record labels and marketing agents. Utilizing Telegram,5 Soundcloud, Instagram and Twitter, MM fans

4 Erwin Khachikian is an example of a diasporic MM artist who never lived in Iran but collaborated remotely with UM bands such as “The Ways” (Goli: 2014). Another example is Raam (Known by his stage name King Raam), one of the self-exiled Iranian rock musicians who left Iran to make his music. Over the past years, Raam returned to Iran several times to create and play music with UM musicians. His journey, however, was put an end to by the imprisonment and death of his father in Iran in 2018.

5 Telegram is a cloud-based instant messaging application widely used in Iran. Despite the Iranian government’s filtering the app, Telegram has one of its largest user bases in Iran (Karasz 2018). One of its key usages among Iranians is file sharing. Music is shared in Telegram groups and channels in different formats such as mp3.

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and musicians share news on upcoming concerts, discuss new songs, and engage in public conversations on a wide range of musical and socio-political issues. In addition, MM artists across the world collaborate in diverse forms of production and marketing via the Internet. The sense of comradery and supportive networks has led many MM musicians and instrumentalists such as Mohammad Talani, Erwin Khachikian, Payman Salimi, and Yahya Al-Khansa to collaborate in various stages of production and performance in multiple MM bands globally.

Having first emerged as a local underground scene in post-revolutionary Iran in the 1990s and developped translocally via the transnational collaborations and communication, MM has blurred the boundaries of translocal and virtual music scenes types. This study examines a major example of such transnational musical activities; the MM scene in Northern California concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Description of the Scenes: MLA and MM

Following the discussion on theoretical framework and types of music scenes, this section provides a detailed description of MLA and MM as two scenes of Persian popular music to highlight each one’s distinct features. I also discuss how MM and MLA scenes centered in

California differ from and interact with each other. From a chronological perspective corresponding to the two large waves of Iranian migration to the US in the 1980s and 2000s, I offer nuanced accounts of MLA and MM which help to sharpen our understanding of Iranian migrants’ musical activities and processes of identification and disidentification in the US. I draw on existing scholarship as well as my own fieldwork research and engagement with the scenes as a member of the Iranian community, a researcher, and a musician to convey to the reader distinct aspects of the scenes, sounds, figures, politics, and behind-the-scenes activities.

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Description of Mainstream (‘Musiqi-ye losanjelesi,’ MLA) Scene

With the settlement of half a million Iranians in Southern California—including artists, singers, and musicians—in the early 1980s a flourishing Iranian-focused music industry emerged in Los Angeles. Initially focusing on and re-releasing pre-revolutionary Persian popular music from the 1960s and 1970s, this local culture industry gradually began producing an increasingly

Americanized style of music that came to be called Musiqi-ye losanjelesi or MLA. As Sassen has written, Los Angeles of the 1980s and 1990s was a global city that functioned as

a border zone where the old spatialities and temporalities of the national and the new ones of the global digital age engage. Out of their juxtaposition comes the possibility of a whole series of new economic and cultural projects (1994: 18).

With a diversity of cultures and plurality of voices, Los Angeles provided a productive and encouraging setting for these exiled Iranian musicians who had faced hostility against their music at the hands of Iran’s new regime. By the early 1990s, the scene in Los Angeles offered a wide range of resources and cultural exposures, inspiring the emergence of new styles, stars, forms, and contents.

Despite socio-cultural and musical transformations in the new setting, MLA’s primary musical output continued to emphasize Persian-language love and dance songs set to a 6/8 rhythm (Auliffe 2011: 64). While the pre-revolutionary Iranian popular music style was not exclusively replicated in exile, it continued to dominate the sound of MLA: the predominance of shish o hasht (literally six and eight) beats, orchestral harmonies, and reverberant vocals

(Robertson 2005: 31). The strong impact of pre-revolutionary Persian popular music on the emergence of MLA necessitates an examination of the history of popular music in Iran in order to cast light on its socio-cultural significance, aesthetic value, and discursive associations among

Iranians at home and in diaspora.

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History of Persian Popular Music

Persian popular music (Iranian national music closely linked to the industries of mass media) first emerged in Iran following the second World War in the 1960s under the influence of

Iran’s then Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who attempted to modernize and Westernize the country in various realms (Breyley 2010). After the 1953 Iranian coup d'état (known as the “28

Mordad” coup d'état in Iran), the Shah put great emphasis on creating an urban middle class as a new supporting base for the government (Attaran 2017: 25). The Shah’s main objective was to meet the needs of the educated middle class and to counteract political opposition among the country’s new generation. Under the impact of such policies and taking advantage of increased oil sale revenues and international financial aid in the mid-1950s, the Shah invested heavily in the Westernization of culture and the arts. The culture of consumerism also spread in the society, and the gap between the affluent and lower classes became more pronounced.

With the appearance of modern restaurants, clubs, and bars in urban centers as manifestations of modern life (ibid.), a new form of Persian popular music, similar to American popular music of the 1950s and 1960s, emerged as a key component of these modern gathering hubs. The new market encouraged musical activities of many foreign and foreign-influenced musicians and bands in Iran. Iranian-Armenian singer-songwriter Viguen and influential composer and arranger Varoujan are two key figures who rose to prominence during this period

(Attaran 2017: 30). In such a context, Iranian popular music shifted away from Eastern (mainly

Arabic) styles to more Western styles (ibid.).

Persian Popular Music: Definition, Roots, Migration, and Transformations

The earliest ethnomusicological study of Persian popular music appears in the work of

Bruno Nettl, whose residency in Tehran in the late 1960s culminated in major academic investigations of Iran’s art/traditional and popular music. As Martin Stokes (1992), Bruno Nettl

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(1972), and Anthony Shay (2016) observe, ethnomusicologists showed initial reluctance to the study of popular music due to its supposed lack of authenticity, mass appeal, association with modern technology, and particularly in the Middle East, its lower status among native musicians.

Nettl also blames the difficulty of defining popular music as another reason for such academic neglect (1972: 218).

To Nettl, Western popular music has some key features including its primarily urban context and audience, not highly professional and trained musicians, lower degree of sophistication compared to art music of its culture, and mass dissemination since the 20th century. In Asia, Nettl notes (1972: 218), urban popular music emerged in the 20th century, although its role in cultural and musical domains may have differed from the Western contexts.

To Nettl, Persian popular music is a widely disseminated, urban form of music distinguished from traditional, tribal and regional folk styles of music. A major difference between Persian popular music and its Western counterpart observed by Nettl is its noticeably intercultural repertory which draws on a diversity of non-Iranian styles for content and form (1972: 219). In comparison to Persian traditional (art) music, whose repertory, style, and instrumentation are static and highly-policed by local culture authorities, Nettl described Persian popular music as a domain for innovation and stylistic explorations.

Dividing Persian popular music into Western and Iranian styles each having its own venues of live performance and producing and consuming agents, Nettl further discusses distinctions in language, instrumentation and orchestration, harmony and vocal techniques (1972:

219-223). Western styles of Persian popular music mainly used Western instruments such as brass, electric guitars, and drum sets. Iranian styles were primarily performed on Iranian musical

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instruments such as the santur, tar, setar, and tonbak.6 Western instruments were also utilized. In mainstream Persian styles, which frequently appeared in Iranian films in the same manner as

Indian movies, orchestras dominated by violins provided a heterophonic or monophonic accompaniment to the melodies (222-223).

Nettl observes a great variety of popular musics in Persian culture (222-229) and attempts to provide a micro-categorization of musical styles to cast light on nuances caused by various ethnic and non-Iranian influences. Despite the differences, certain commonalities across several of the categories of Iran’s popular music include 1) predominance of vocal music, in line with

Western popular music practices and in contrast to Persian traditional music, 2) short, repeated melodic constructions, 3) small orchestras and instrumentally heterogeneous ensembles presenting material in octaves with the use of heterophony and minor use of Western functional harmony, 4) at least some musicians having the ability to perform in various styles, 5) predominance of metric music, duple and 6/8 meters, 6) mostly quick tempi.

With the migration of pre-revolutionary musicians to LA in the 1970s, Persian pop gradually shifted toward increased Westernized/Americanized styles although certain features including the predominance of vocal music, 6/8 meter, and short melodic sequences continued to exist.7 Two key components of Persian popular music that faced drastic transformation through the commodification of music in exile are the closely linked motrebi and kucheh bazãri traditions. Kucheh bazãri (literally “of alleys and bazaars”) and motrebi (“that of public

6 Santur is a dulcimer found in the Middle East, south-eastern Europe and South and East Asia (During et al. 2001). Tar is a double-chested plucked lute of the Rabab family used in Iran (used in both art and popular music) and the Caucasus (During et al. 2001). Setar (meaning three strings in Farsi) is a lute of the Tanbur family with a long neck, small body, and four metal string (During and Alsatair 2001). Also known as Zarb, Tobak is the goblet drum of Iran used in entertainment music, folk, and art music (During 2001).

7 Hemmasi (2010: 160-173) provides a detailed account of the retention and transformation of pre-revolutionary popular music in LA.

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entertainer”) traditions are described and analyzed by some scholars as the indigenous ancestors of Persian popular music and MLA.

Breyely (2010: 212) defines kucheh bazãri as a genre of Persian popular music that incorporated various elements of Arab music including rhythmic structures, vocal techniques, and instrumentations. While kucheh bazãri was overshadowed by the Westernized popular music of the 1960s, it retained its popularity among the working-class communities in South Tehran.

Two stars of kucheh bazãri music were Susan and Aghasi, who moved to Tehran from small cities in Kurdistan and Khuzestan provinces respectively (Figure 3-2). Motrebi, closely tied to kucheh bazãri, is a dance and easy listening music performed by groups of motreb (“public entertainers”) organized into theatrical troupes.8 Frequently disparaged by critics as a mediocre and aesthetically worthless form of dance music, the light urban, and sensualized motrebi and kucheh bazãri traditions gradually disappeared from the realm of Persian popular music during the Pahlavi period (Breyley and Fatemi 2016).

The negative connotations of the motrebi tradition emerged in the Qajar era as the word moterb began to mean a lowbrow public entertainer specializing in bawdy and vulgar entertainment music performed during celebratory events including weddings and in cafes and cabarets in former red-light district of Tehran, Shahr-e Now. Moreover, motrebi music’s significant position in Persian language cinema, filme fãrsi, which featured scantily dressed female singers and dancers and was largely consumed by lower classes, further intensified such connotations (Shay 2016: xi). Despite its lower status, motrebi music’s appearance in films as an urban and indigenous form made it an important part of mass media and a visible component of

Iran’s popular culture. With the Shah’s modernity project, motrebi music and dance as well as its

8 For further information on motrebi refer to Breyley and Fatemi (2016).

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theatrical improvised accompaniment ‘ruhowzi’ faced increased denigration. During the Pahlavi period, the figure of the moterb became an embarrassment and was later banned under the

Islamic government (Shay 2016: xvii).

Partly due to such negative public connotations, both traditions also faced academic neglect. Adding motrebi to Nettl’s categorization of Persian popular music (2016: xi), Anthony

Shay rejects the derogatory and negative views and highlights its significance as entertaining, authentic, and reflective of social realities, anxieties and values of many individuals in the

Iranian society (Breyley and Fatemi 2016: 1). Ethnomusicologist Farzaneh Hemmasi pays attention to the kucheh bazãri roots of MLA as she examines the dual function of exilic popular music (maintaining memories of the past and creating fresh sounds to express new feelings)

(2010). The commercial transformation of kucheh bazãri in exile changed its status inside the home country—similar to the histories of the Argentine tango, Brazilian capoeira and Cuban son

(Gautier 2006: 818-19)—and elevated it to an acceptable national symbol. In LA, the music of

Susan, Aghasi, Davoud Maghami, Abbas Ghaderi, and Jalal Hemmati ignited memories of Iran’s past and gained an aura of authenticity and nostalgia (Figures 3-3). In exile, kucheh bazãri singers received a higher status, love, and respect compared to their status prior to the migration.

The kucheh bazãri and motrebi roots of MLA played key roles in the establishment and transformation of an Iranian popular music scene in exile and its function and significance within the diaspora. As Naficy highlights (2000: 250), in exile particularly during the 1980s and 90s,

MLA performed the dual, and seemingly contradictory, functions of aiding Iranians to maintain a discrete ethnic and cultural identity while simultaneously paving the path toward their transformations from outsiders into assimilated citizens. Moreover, as Chapter 4 further elucidates, MLA’s roots in “lowbrow” traditions (kucheh bazãri and motrebi) had a great impact

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on its perceived artistic and intellectual value among Iranians and influenced processes of identity negotiation in diaspora.

Serving as an influential tool in preserving memories of the past and expressing new sentiments (Hemmasi 2010), MLA has thrived in its diasporic context due to two key factors; 1) the emigration of well-known Iranian popular music stars and skillful musicians, 2) the two- decade ban on popular music inside Iran (from the late 1970s to the late 1990s). Some of the major popular music stars who emigrated to Los Angeles include Dariush, Ebi, Leila Forouhar,

Shahram Shabpareh, Shohreh Solati, Hayedeh, Mahasti, Sattar, and Viguen (Hemmasi 2010:

154). Key lyricists such as Shahyar Ghanbari and Zoya Zakarian as well as many composers and arrangers including Hassan Shamayeezadeh and Siavash Ghomeishi also moved to LA and helped the newly-established music industry thrive.

In the period between the late 1980s and early 2000s, new singers such as Andy

Madadian, Susan Roshan, Farshid Amin, Mansour, and Sepideh, Kamran and Hooman, Shahram

Kay, Siavash Shams, and Mekabiz emerged in the MLA scene with the support of Iranian-owned record labels, exilic television/radio stations, and concert promoters. Major record labels including Avang, Taraneh and Caltex and exilic television stations such as ITN owned by Hamid

Shabkhiz were the key disseminators of MLA. Record labels and television channels also controlled music videos, owned their rights, and arranged their screenings (Hemmasi 2010: 156).

Live performances across the US and annual concerts in countries near Iran have been additional means for disseminating MLA.

Another significant context for the distribution of MLA is Iranian cultural gatherings such as Persian New Year (Norooz), winter solstice or longest night of the year (Yalda), and

Mehregan (a Zoroastrian festival honoring Mithra) celebrations (Figure 3-4 to 3-7). In the US,

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Norooz is celebrated in different cities depending on the size of the local Iranian population. In addition to music and dance performances, such events host DJs, Iranian food caterers, artistic and cultural institutions representing their work, and small businesses selling cultural commodities such as handcrafts, wheat sprouts, and colored eggs (Figure 3-5). The largest

American Norooz celebrations are held in Southern California, mainly through the support of

Farhang Foundation (Figures 3-6 and 7).9 Besides Iranian cultural institutions, Iranian students’ associations hold Norooz and other festivities in different universities across the US and invite

MLA stars, dancers, and DJs to perform.

In addition to cultural festivities, MLA is performed in clubs and concert halls on different occasions. A central venue for the performance of MLA is Cabaret Tehran located on

Ventura Boulevard in San Fernando Valley (Hemmasi 2010: 172-175). As one of the oldest and best-known Iranian businesses in Southern California, Cabaret Tehran has hosted numerous venerable and emergent MLA stars since its establishment in the late 1970s. Created in the style of the Westernized cabarets of pre-revolutionary Tehran (frequently depicted in old filme fãrsi movies), Cabaret Tehran is a bar/restaurant with a semi-circular stage and a small dance floor. I visited the cabaret in November 2017 to attend a concert by the exiled star, Sattar (Figure 3-8).

The show opened with a young singer who performed covers of several famous old and new dance tunes as the audience enjoyed their dinner and drinks and danced. The entirely Iranian staff astonished me as it was the first completely Farsi-speaking business environment I had

9 Farhang Foundation, established in 2008 in LA, is one of the most significant cultural (non-religious, non-political) institutions whose main objective is to promote Iranian arts and culture in the US. https://farhang.org/.

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encountered in the US.10 After the opening show, a seemingly non-Iranian/white young lady demonstrated a combination of Persian and belly dance (Figure 3-9).

Following the dance, Sattar appeared on the stage with the same group of musicians (a guitarist, bassist, drummer, keyboard player, and percussionist) who had played during the opening segment. Sattar sang some of his most well-known songs as the audience danced.

Between the songs Sattar shared his political views. An instance that I found very startling was the way he reacted to a few young people who danced to one of his oldest, most famous songs

(“Shazdeh Khanoom,” “the Princess”). Saying “oh look what Khomieni has raised and educated!” he sarcastically criticized both the dancing group and the Iranian regime’s policies on popular music, particularly those policies aimed at MLA. He sounded arrogant during the show and was very protective of his stardom status. I was told he was quite nice and respectful to the fans afterwards as he spent some time to take pictures with the people who had lined up in the backstage.

Cabaret Tehran is a cozy place where fans and musicians feel physically close and act in a friendly manner. Yet, the generational gap among the audience was quite pronounced. In contrast to Hemmasi (2010: 175) who finds Cabaret Tehran a socio-musical milieu through which the young generation gains access to their parents’ culture and music, I personally felt excluded. I did not belong to that place and could not relate to the music and dance. I speculate I would not agree with most of the customers’ political views as well as they appeared to be royalists. I was also offended by Sattar’s commentary on the young group dancing to his song.

10 The great number of Iranian businesses in Southern California has exempted Iranian exiled clients (particularly the older generation) from learning English. There are numerous Iranian doctors, lawyers, travel and real estate agents, and business owners who provide their services exclusively in Farsi. Cabaret Tehran is one of those businesses.

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My husband and I were among the very few people of the younger generation with the majority of the audience being in their 50s through 80s. The whole place, its setting, decor and music seemed to be frozen in the past.

The generational gap on the one hand and the socio-cultural disparities between pre- and post-revolutionary Iran on the other, have made a great impact on the reception and popularity of

MLA both in diaspora and at home in Iran. As Robertson observes, Persian popular music produced in LA no longer “satiates the desires of Iranian youth born and living in Iran” (2005:

32). They crave a music that directly speaks to, for, and about them. Thus, they make their own music. In the US, dance parties are dominated by the music of young generation musicians, particularly those residing in Iran. This is in contrast to Hemmasi’s observation that second- generation Iranians enjoy and draw on MLA as a source for their ancestral identity (2010: 177).

Several new stars that emerged in Iran’s underground scene in the past decade and emigrated to the US in the recent years such as 25 Band (from Mashhad) and Sasy Mankan (from Tehran) are staples of dance parties. Underground hip-hop bands and artists including Zedbazi, Yas, and

Hichkas have also secured significant positions among the young generation of Iranians in diaspora.11 Europe-based stars and bands such as internationally-renowned Arash, TM Bax, and

Sogand are also popular among the youth.

Besides, Iranian state-approved (Mojãz, “permitted”) musicians have made a noticeable appearance in diaspora in the recent years. Supported by the Iranian state media and concert promoters in Iran, singers and musicians such as Behnam Bani, Hamid Hirad, Hojjat

Ashrafzadeh, Benyamin Bahadori, Mohsen Yeganeh, Ehsan Khajeamiri, and Reza Sadeghi have become increasingly popular at home and in the diaspora. Trying to benefit from their fame,

11 Many underground hip-hop artists have also self-exiled due to Iranian regime’s threats and arrests.

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managers and concert sponsors in the US invite many singers including Benyamin, Mohsen

Yeganeh, and Reza Sadeghi to perform in various cities across the US. While Persian art and folklore musicians have always been invited for a variety of musical events and shows (examples include Pournazeri brothers, Mohammad Reza and Homayoun Shajarian, Mohammad Reza

Lotfi, and Majid Derakhshani), Mojãz popular music concerts are new events and indicate their emerging popularity among the diasporic youth. The appearance of Mojãz in diaspora also highlights the significant impact of transnational cultural flows.

Although Mojãz musicians receive antagonistic responses from individuals who are against the Iranian regime (and as a result its approved musicians) and MLA stars who continuously find their shows less appealing to the youth, diasporic Iranians have shown great interest in Mojãz Persian popular music. Musicians Mohsen Yeganeh and Ehsan Khajeamiri, for example, had several sold-out shows in California in 2017 and 2018. Hojjat Ashrafzadeh also sold out a large concert in San Jose, California in April 2019. There are various factors contributing to the extreme popularity of Mojãz musicians in diaspora. First, their music is widely disseminated on Iranian television shows via the Internet and satellite broadcast and thus very popular. Second, Mojãz musicians create new forms of dance music and love songs that differ from the standardized and old-fashioned MLA products, as well as from avant-garde alternative music of MM and UM. New fusions of electronic dance music with Persian art singing techniques, datgãhs, and instruments are some of the most popular styles of Mojãz music. Third, and most importantly, familiarity with Mojãz songs generates a new form of translocal cultural capital that connects Iranians at home and in diaspora. Activities like distributing the songs, knowing the lyrics, and dancing to the commonly shared tunes function as socio-cultural glue attaching the widely separated Iranians.

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Since President Trump signed the executive order banning Iranians to travel to the US,12 the number of Mojãz musicians’ concerts has decreased tremendously. In a conversation with a concert promoter and band manager who used to bring Mojãz musicians to the US, I was told getting visas for these musicians has become very difficult, if not impossible.13 Nonetheless, those who have Green Cards or dual citizenships continue to travel to the US to perform. The examination of the history of Persian popular music reveals that it has been drastically influenced by politics. The US travel ban imposed on Iranians is the most recent example of political impact on Persian popular music. Regardless of conditions and possibility of travel, Iranian Mojãz and

UM musicians have secured prominent reputations among the youth in diaspora. The increasing popularity and appeal of MM, UM, and Mojãz musicians has led to a gradual decline of MLA across the world. Challenging MLA’s hegemonic position in the Persian popular music arena, new genres and styles of Persian popular music have become vehicles for the expression of new sentiments, identities and concerns.

Description of the Alternative Music (Musiqi-ye Mostaghel, MM) Scene

The emergence and popularity of alternative music (Musiqi-ye Mostaghel, MM) in the

Iranian diaspora has been a major factor in the decline of MLA over the past decade. With the exodus of educated, young Iranians (including alternative musicians) during the brain drain phase of migration starting in the mid-2000s, MM became widely scattered in diaspora. The new emigrants grew up in a drastically altered homeland after the revolution compared to the exiles of the 1980s, left Iran under distinct socio-political and economic conditions, and encountered a different (yet similarly hostile) atmosphere in the host country. New experiences led to new

12 Executive order 13769 signed on 27 January 2017.

13 I avoid using names to protect the informants if requested by them. Because they travel home, some prefer to stay anonymous not to risk their chances for home return.

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messages, voices, and forms of music as MM became a new platform and vehicle for the expression of identity, emotions, and experiences of the young generation of Iranian emigrants.

Responding to demands and taking advantage of their established positions in Iran’s

Underground Music (UM) scene, MM began to flourish as an alternative form of music in the

Iranian diaspora.

As was discussed earlier in this chapter, MM is an inherently translocal and DIY scene with a complementing virtual scene. It stemmed from the UM scene in Iran, which had emerged in the late 1990s by taking advantage of the government’s relaxed regulations on music education and production as well as technological advances (Goli 2014). With the emigration and self-exile of many Iranian UM musicians, MM offered an alternative and counter- mainstream form of Persian popular music in the diaspora. Prior to discussing the MM scene’s particularities, it is important to explain the term alternative in relation to music.

Alternative Music as a Category

The meaning of “alternative music,” broadly defined as music in opposition to the mainstream musics marketed and distributed by the dominant music industry, has changed significantly since the term came into broad usage in the 1980s. Before the 1980s, “alternative” was used to describe music that differed from the pop, jazz, and classical categories but freely drew on these and other forms for its stylistic features. In the US, the designation initially referred to a diversity of musical outputs from avant-garde musicians in New York City including John Cage, Velvet Underground, and Philip Glass and musicians active in the city’s nascent punk movement of the 1970s such as Patti Smith, The New York Dolls, and Talking

Heads (Stilwell 2001). What these artists shared was their locality and a desire to re-draw boundaries between established commercial genres and styles. Stylistically, alternative music also incorporated non-Western sounds.

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Due to these artists’ popularity among university students and the music’s extensive broadcast on college radio stations, the term alternative became associated with the counter- mainstream in the 1980s. Artists and bands such as the Police and REM who emerged as counter-mainstream but then gained massive mainstream commercial success lost their alternative status. In the early 1990s, Grunge—a musical style with nihilistic lyrics and raw aesthetics originated in Seattle in the works of bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam—and the radical ‘riot grrrl’ movement based in Washington were labeled as alternative. Despite the diversity of styles included under the term, by the mid-1990s the label “alternative” was broadly, and paradoxically, used to refer to a relatively coherent style of mainstream music.

Having emerged simultaneously with the punk and independent communities in Olympia,

Washington and Washington DC (Schilt 2004: 115), Riot Grrrl was a local music scene which encouraged women to take control of their own cultural productions. It combined the “Do It

Yourself” character of early punk with feminist views that grew out of the discontent with punk gender dynamics in the late 1980s. The end result was a culture with a distinct style of music, fashion, and zines. Defying strict definitions and the creation of a fixed “Riot Grrrl” identity, girls associated with the movement used the label with a diversity of meanings (Schilt 2004:

120). The flexibility of self-definition and absence of manifestos and rules for participation democratized musical production and scene participation and helped spread messages across the country.

Based on the DIY aesthetics, Riot Grrrl musicians distributed their music through small, independent record labels. Releasing their music exclusively on independent labels associated with the scenes enabled these musicians to retain control over their music production (Schilt

2004: 123). They discredited the image of the “unapproachable rock star” and invited their

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supporters to take an active role in the scene creation by providing their personal contact information so that fans could communicate directly with the musicians.

MM resembles the Riot Grrrl scene on many levels. First, MM (like its predecessor UM) is a DIY scene in terms of music production and dissemination. Some renowned MM musicians release their music through small, independent record labels often owned by themselves or their managers. Many MM musicians use Internet platforms such as YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, and most importantly Radio Javan14 to distribute their music. Such independent distribution of music provides them with relative autonomy and flexibility in production and marketing matters.

Their online presence allows them to communicate with their fans, share news, advertise for shows, and receive feedback. The technological advances and the emergence of virtual scenes facilitated and strengthened the DIY aspect of this alternative scene.

On the production side, MM musicians often rely on their followers for financial support.

While some MM musicians have producing agents, whose support may be sufficient for music production, many use fundraising websites such as GoFundMe or Kickstarter to secure at least some funding for their musical activities. Mohsen Namjoo and Ali Azimi, for instance, used their

Twitter and Instagram pages to ask fans to support their album production in 2017 and 2018

(Figures 3-10 A, B, and C). Fans’ financial contributions not only enable alternative musicians to pursue their careers, but also give fans a sense of inclusion and an active role in the production process. Rather than being passive consumers, these fans are invited to share their ideas on social media (virtual scenes) and assume an active role as stakeholders in processes of production and dissemination.

14 Radio Javan is the largest online platform for the broadcast of Persian music in all genres at home and in diaspora. https://www.radiojavan.com/

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Besides fans’ financial support, MM musicians receive funds from private, non-profit cultural organizations run by alternative music and avant-garde arts’ aficionados. PerFusion and

Diaspora Arts Connection (DAC) are two key private organizations involved in cultural and artistic activities in California. These two organizations sponsor exhibitions, concerts, plays, workshops, movie screenings, and discussion sessions to promote independent and newly emerged artists in diaspora. DAC represents itself as “A non-profit organization dedicated to promoting artistic and cultural events in the San Francisco Bay Area & beyond,” whose objective is to “foster deeper understanding and lasting connections among diverse cultural and ethnic groups…through the organization of cultural and artistic events” (Diaspora Arts

Connection’s Facebook Page, 2019). Functioning as the Iranian diaspora’s most significant independent cultural and artistic organization in Northern California, DAC promotes alternative musicians such as Sara Naieini, Mohsen Namjoo, Ali Azimi, Fareed Shafie Noori, Ayda

Shahghasemi, and Dina Zarif among others. Volunteers who devote their time and money to the production, performance, and dissemination of counter-mainstream music and arts mainly run the DAC.

I was introduced to DAC’s founder and executive chair Nazy Kaviani via an MM music manager. In a friendly conversation at a café in Vacaville, CA, Nazy explained to me the mission, objectives, and future goals of the organization.

I have always been in contact with artists. Decades ago, back in Iran, I used to provide a stage for opera singers and alternative artists (who did not have a large audience) in my penthouse. I always supported independent artists, but I officially founded the DAC in 2013. Later in 2015, I made it a non-profit organization with two major goals. One has always been to support and help vulnerable artists. In fact, American artists are also vulnerable if they are not famous. Artists in general are all vulnerable. But a refugee and emigrant artist is more helpless. He has no support because in our culture families are not proud of their children’s artistic activities. If one wants to dedicate his whole life to music and choose a lifetime of poverty, families do not support that… During these years I have seen

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malnourished artists because they choose to spend their money on their musical career rather than food… they are young you know! Or drugs… sometimes these artists only need a hug, sometimes they need money, and most often, they need a stage. I can set stages in home garages. But that is not a decent stage.… Another goal of mine with the DAC has been to build a community around the culture and arts. When I moved back to the US in 2006, nothing was going on in Northern CA.15 Once a year Shajarian would come here to perform. The only thing that would happen regularly was Leila Forouhar’s shows [a prominent MLA star]. There was nothing at all. I gradually brought people together. One person played an instrument, another recited poetry. I built a community around the arts and culture (Personal conversation with Nazy, July 2018).16

Discussing economics of promoting alternative musicians, Nazy explained that there is not much financial profit for her or the organization. Unlike MLA agents who make considerable profits due to the mainstream and commercial nature of that scene, MM agents can barely cover their expenses. To her, MM has a unique audience that does not form a majority in the diaspora community. As a result, MM agents struggle and need to rely on volunteer work and other forms of support such as fundraising.

The economic aspect of this job is very small and marginal. There is no money in it. Putting together a show for an alternative artist, you need to rent a good venue. If you want to pay them fairly, even if the show sells out, there is no money in it for the manager or the organization. That is why real music dealers would never support someone who brings 400 people to the concert hall. Only non-profit organizations, meaning those who are not working for the money and have a mission to support the arts, would do this. Like in our own community, there are many music dealers who bring Googoosh, or Shahram Shabpareh, or the TM Bax. These are wonderful and successful musicians in their genres and can attract large groups of 1000 people or more in San Jose (CA). But I have organized shows for the best pianist or the best tenor singer, which attracted only 170 people.… Now the most reasonable way to arrange shows is not to lose money. Of course, I do not call it loss. I call it subsidy (ibid).

It is important to take note of Nazy’s word choice of “dealer” instead of “manager” in the case of

MLA and dance music. To MM musicians, fans, and promoters, MM is not a commodity to

15 Nazy explained to me that she moved back and forth between Iran and the US until 2006 which was the last time she came to the US never to go back home again.

16 The conversation was in Farsi. I translated it to English. This applies to all conversations quoted in the text.

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purchase but invaluable art to enjoy and support. Its promoters are managers of artists while

MLA promoters are dealers of some products.

As Nazy highlights, the MM scene (like other alternative music scenes) is highly dependent on its DIY ethics, fan support and non-profit organizations to survive in diaspora.

Another similarity between the Riot Grrrl movement and MM as alternative music scenes is their flexibility in defining the styles and associated genres of music. Like the Riot Grrrl, MM is very flexible and dynamic in its dealing with musical elements and lyrical content boundaries. There is no manifesto and no set of rules determining who and what belongs to the scene. For instance, while it is a commonly shared perspective among scene participants that MM does not include

Persian dance and easy listening music, there are no regulations prohibiting the production of such musical styles. The diversity of forms, messages, arrangement and orchestrations, vocal styles, and visual aspects existing in the scene has given MM a pluralistic and inclusive atmosphere which encourages young and counter-mainstream musicians to explore their musical talents.

The Sound of Music: Genres, Styles, and Distinctions between the Scenes

At a private gathering of MM artists in Albany California I was told, “If you study popular music you should go to LA! All the pop stars are there” (Field Notes, October 2019).

This was the first response I received from a woman whose husband is a famous MM musician when I introduced myself as a researcher of Persian popular music. Her dismissive tone indicated a major difference in the orientation of the two diasporic music scenes in Northern and Southern

California.

The distinction between genres and styles plays a key role in shaping scene members’ perceptions of the scene and the collectivity shaped around it. Participants in alternative music scenes distinguish musical genres and styles based on insider knowledge and agreement. As Ruth

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Finnegan underscores (1989: 104), while for most people “pop music” refers to Top 40 hits, to alternative music fans “pop” signifies the music that rejects the extremes of punk or heavy metal.

Studying college music scenes, Kruse observes, “within alternative music culture the pop/rock distinction is clearly important” (1993: 36). Participants in alternative music scenes create a collective identity based on a distinct taste in music (and perhaps a way of life) through which they identify themselves against others. The informants Kruse interviewed seemed to use pop in a specific way whose understanding in the context of college music requires a certain amount of subcultural knowledge.

Kruse’s analysis of alternative college music scenes aligns with MM scene members’ view on the distinction between “pop” and rock. The majority of MM fans and musicians I interviewed or conversed with highlighted the difference between “pop” and other genres of music including rock and fusion. To them, “Persian pop” refers to mainstream MLA music, which is described as standardized, easy listening, devoid of innovation, and full of worthless messages and lyrics. While none of my informants were able to offer a clear definition of “pop” music, they commonly agreed that MLA is “pop” (offering examples of Leila Forouhar,

Shahram Shabpareh, Sepideh, Kamran and Hooman). MM enthusiasts’ understanding of alternative music is similar to what Simon Reynolds identifies as British indie pop (1989).

British indie pop (i.e., “independent pop,” signifies an opposition to mainstream music practices not only because the genre emerged on independent labels but also because “pure pop” puts greater emphasis on the significance of voice as a medium for the words (Reynolds 1989: 247).

MM scene members tend to value form, instrumentation, and lyrical contents as equal to the quality and delivery of the voice.

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In addition to distinct perceptions of musical genres and styles, participants in the MM scene distinguish themselves and their practices of consumption, production and interaction from those of the MLA scene. Both producers and consumers are conscious of scene particularities and the differences and similarities between MM and MLA. Unlike MLA, in which music is produced by different individuals with distinct specialized roles (singers, instrumentalists, lyricists, composers, and arrangers), in the MM scene the singers are mostly songwriters who compose and perform their own music. A majority of MM musicians play at least one instrument, compose their own melodies, and most often write their own lyrics. They also frequently finalize the arrangements of their music during jam sessions with other musicians.

Workshop production is the common practice that comes from UM and alternative scenes’ DIY ethos and a culture of groupwork. While there might exist a division of labor in arrangement and sound engineering processes, the building blocks of the songs are created by singers themselves.

Ali Azimi, Mohsen Namjoo, Kiosk Band, Penta Band, and Marjan Farsad are among the MM singers and groups who write their own music. The distinction in production practices between

MLA and MM has a great impact on value judgments over issues of authenticity and meaningfulness of musical products, which will be discussed further in Chapter 4.

In addition to distinct production practices, discrepancies in consumption differentiate

MLA and MM audiences. Despite an overlap of people who participate in both scenes, MM and

MLA patrons may demonstrate different consuming behaviors in the two distinct settings. The dominance of dance rhythms in MLA encourages the audiences’ bodily interactions and physical engagement. MM, in contrast, invites a more reflective, non physical way of consumption regardless of the context (at home, in gatherings, or in concerts). There is minimum bodily engagement in MM concerts. In smaller venues, people stand or sit near the stage and silently

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enjoy the music (Figures 3-11 and 3-13 A and B). In large venues, the audience listens to music while seated, producing the least interruption of extraneous sounds and movements during the performance (Figure 3-12).

Commercialization, Commodification and the Notion of Autonomy

One of the key characteristics of alternative music scenes is a sense of autonomy achieved through its distinction from and opposition to mainstream and commercial music. The support of independent record labels “indie”, which produce and distribute music with varying degrees of independence from major record corporations (Fenster and Swiss 1999: 231), allows alternative musicians to create their music with relative freedom. In the case of alternative rock music for instance, Kruse observes that women acquire more freedom in writing their songs, forming bands, and playing instruments (Kruse 1991).

However, indie labels also play central roles in larger mainstream music industries as they introduce and develop new genres, styles, artists, and innovative business strategies (Fenster and Swiss 1999: 232). Achieving commercial success and mainstream fame, however, may lead an alternative band to lose its autonomy and alter its musical output (and even its stage appearance and persona) to meet the music industry’s expectations and concerns. Popular mainstream musicians and bands may also maintain a degree of autonomy but continue to rely on the music industry and record labels’ financial support.

I suggest that the notion of perceived autonomy is one of the fundamental distinctions between MLA and MM for Iranians. Record labels, producing agents, and exilic media in

Southern California are the chief decision makers determining who and what gets promoted in the MLA scene. Imposing its standards, the exilic “culture industry” (Horkheimer and Adorno

2004) has established conventional musical forms such as the 6/8 dance tunes and romantic ballads as well as typical instrumentations, melodic structures, and lyrical contents.

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Unconventional sounds and new contents are pushed to the peripheries of the exile media. One example of such control over music production and promotion is the case of MLA singer, Andy

Madadian. Andy is an internationally famous Iranian-Armenian popular music singer whose early musical outputs were rock-oriented. To meet the industry’s expectations, he was eventually forced to alter his repertory to include 6/8 dance music. He is now recognized as a dance music singer, often performing in private parties and cultural celebrations (such as Mehregan celebration, Figure 3-4). In a conversation in a café in Glendale, CA, Andy told me that his band and he most often play the rock-oriented arrangements of his songs on stage. The recordings and music videos he said “should meet the expectation of the audience of dance music. Our people do not like rock. They enjoy pop and dance music” (Personal conversation, September 2019).

While Andy has tried to keep the rock orientation of his music alive, even limited to concerts and live shows, Iranians large see him as a dance music singer and a perfect example of mainstream

MLA.

MM musicians, however, enjoy more autonomy and flexibility in production than their

MLA counterparts as they work with indie labels and fans turned entrepreneurs. As Frederic

Jameson asserts,

the only authentic cultural production today has seemed to be that which can draw on collective experience of marginal pockets of the social life of the world system: black literature and blues, British working-class rock, women’s literature … and this production is possible only to the degree to which these forms of collective solidarity have not yet been fully penetrated by the market and by the commodity system” (1979: 140).

Seen as oppositional to the commercial mainstream, MM musicians and their followers conceptualize it as autonomous from the music industry. It is thus expected to be more reflective of societal concerns and collective emotions as opposed to MLA songs that emphasize love for a beloved or the homeland and are dance-oriented. Moreover, MM is seen as the domain of

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musical creativity and transgression from conventional MLA sounds. The notion of autonomy is closely tied to the complex issue of authenticity and socio-cultural significance, which is one of the distinctive features between MLA and MM. The multifaceted interrelationship between autonomy, authenticity, aesthetic value and taste will be further discussed in Chapter 4 as I explore the expression and negotiation of identity in MLA and MM scenes.

Conclusion

Using the theoretical model of the music scene, this chapter discusses the history and development of two subscenes (which I refer to as distinct “scenes”) of Persian popular music in exile. As Cohen (1999: 241) maintains, musical scenes comprise clusters of people forging relationships around the circulation and exchange of musical knowledge, taste, instruments, technical support, and products. Through such activities, scenes’ boundaries and distinctions between inside and outside are marked. Rejecting the homogenous, geographically rooted, and bounded anthropological notions of community or subculture, the term scene draws attention to multifaceted processes of scene production through heterogenous “collations” and “alliances” based on musical preferences (Straw 1991). The creation of musical scenes is linked to cultural interactions and exchanges. Thus, as Cohen also emphasizes, local music scenes must be understood and examined in relation to translocal affiliations and broader transnational processes since they do not exist in isolation but rather mirror non-local musical influences (1999: 244).

Studying diasporic music scenes—which are marked by the intensified intermingling of musical cultures, processes of musical hybridization, and syncretism—can sharpen our perception of the cultural flows and complexities of identity formation in transnational spaces.

As a dialectic and complementary pair, MLA and MM are two music scenes with distinct musical and extra-musical features, discourses, and contexts in the Iranian diaspora. Having initially emerged as a local scene in LA, MLA gradually developed as a translocal scene under

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the impact of technological advances and the wide scattering of Iranians in diaspora. MM, however, is an inherently translocal scene with roots and close ties to Iran’s Underground Music

(UM). In diaspora, MLA and MM are interrelated and cannot be examined without paying attention to their overlaps and borrowings as well as conflicts and tensions. Diasporic Iranians’ engagement with MLA and MM scenes reflect a plethora of information about individual and collective identity.

As Cohen highlights in the introduction to Rock Culture in Liverpool (1991), popular music studies lack ethnographic accounts which detail processes of music-making and bands’ struggles to become successful. Ethnographies help demonstrate how scenes are lived, experienced, and imagined by different groups within particular situations. Ruth Finnegan also underscores the importance of examining practices and processes rather than the musical products, and advocates giving attention to grass-roots activities rather than just analyzing formal structures (1989:8). An ethnographic analysis of music scenes allows us to get a sense of plurality of practices that help constitute the identities of those involved. Scene formations are not defined only by musical tastes and knowledge. Rather, race, class, age, and gender are also important points intersecting with taste in music (Kruse 2008: 39-40). Ethnographic accounts thus offer us insights on not only practices and processes of musical production and consumption but also issues of identity (which are intensely multi-layered and complex in the case of displaced groups). Succinct ethnographic descriptions of MLA and MM in this chapter draw attention to the on-the-ground practices and activities and provide an insider view of the scenes.

Having been involved with both MLA and MM as a researcher (also as a musician in the case of MM), I have witnessed that both scenes are highly dynamic and impacted by socio- cultural transformations at home and in diaspora. Each scene has its own production,

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performance, and distribution practices, based on which scene participants navigate their positions and develop notions of self and the community. Iranians in diaspora consume a wide range of Persian music, from folk and art to MLA and MM. Similar to the rock scene in

Liverpool (Cohen 1999: 243), there are overlaps and sharings of local facilities and resources, crossover of musicians, audiences, and sounds between the scenes (particularly in Southern

California). Nonetheless, different kinds of Persian music are performed and consumed in varied contexts with different purposes.

MLA is a staple of public and private festivities and cultural celebrations among Iranian

Americans. Its mainstream status, wide dissemination, and roster of famous stars have made it an inseparable component of Iranian gatherings. Contrarily, folk and art music belong to the concert halls and elite gatherings as in UCLA or Stanford university settings. While MLA is almost exclusively consumed by Iranians and some groups of Farsi speakers including Afghans and

Tajiks, Persian art and folk music attract non-Iranians/non-Farsi speakers as well.

MM, on the other hand, is performed in small concert halls, university amphitheaters, bars, and theater play houses. Although MM does not attract large crowds, it is an important

Persian musical outlet due to its unique group of audience (mainly belonging to the brain drain wave of Iranian migration, and the educated class at home.) and its attractiveness to non-Iranian music fans. The influence of Persian folk and art music and its hybrid character make MM an outer-directed popular music scene (as opposed to MLA) and an instrumental bridge to artistic and cultural communication in diaspora.

My engagement with the scenes depicts that audiences alter their consuming behavior depending on the context and type of music. At MLA concerts, people dance and engage in physical responses to the music. Besides, they do not take the music so seriously. They enjoy

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their drinks, dance, and conversation and might share a few shouts of their requested songs. In

MM performances, however, they listen reflectively with minimum bodily engagement and noise. Singing along mainly happens by the singer’s call, and the audience refrains from all kinds of commentary. The consumption of MM is not as serious/quiet as that of Persian art music in live shows, yet it is not as chaotic as most MLA concerts are. Regardless of generic and stylistic differences between the scenes, live performance venues act as social hubs and provide musicians with spaces to interact with each other and the scene members. Through live performances scenes become visible and physical and create notions of collectivity among the displaced groups.

Other key areas of distinction between MLA and MM are those of production, financial support, and dissemination. As the diasporic mainstream music, MLA is supported by exilic media and record labels based mainly in Southern California. Its production is marked by a division of labor that has a significant impact on its reception and perceived musical value. MM, by contrast, has emerged as a DIY music scene and flourished through the support of volunteers, aficionados, and small independent organizations and record labels. The distinctions between the scenes speak to the diversity of the community. As Blum highlights (quote in Auliffe 2011: 62), every musician “is an agent who participates in more than one social group.” Musical performance enables participants to express and renew connections with multiple aspects of identity. But the multilevel musical and discursive distinctions between MLA and MM have hindered musical collaborations between the two (except for a few examples such as alternative musician and arranger, Erwin Khachikian, who has collaborated with both MLA and MM musicians). There is, however, much collaboration within the same scenes indicating the fluidity and complexity of musicians’ identities in each scene.

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An examination of MLA and MM builds the foundation for the study of intra-communal tensions, processes of identification and disidentification, and acts of boundary making among

Iranians in the US diaspora. As Kruse (2008: 40) avers, affiliations with alternative, independent, and college music scenes enable members to draw a boundary between themselves and others, reject definitions imposed on them, and refuse the assumption that a whole generation (and in the case of migrants, a whole ethnic group) must conform to certain features of identity. Discursive and musical discrepancies between MLA and MM exert a highly influential and direct impact on scene participants’ notions of self and collectivity. In Chapter 4, I examine Iranians’ expression and negotiation of identity within and between the two scenes.

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Table 3-1. An overview of musical and extra-musical features of MLA and MM FEATURES MLA MM Time Frame 1980s-present 2000s-present Location Southern CA, Los Angeles Transnational, in the US mainly located in Northern CA, San Francisco Bay Area Performance Venues Large Concert halls such as Bars and pubs, university Kodak Theater and amphitheaters and concert Hollywood Bowl, public halls, small privately-owned open-air venues such as Santa concert halls and theaters Monica BLVD, staple LA- such as Central Stage in based Iranian bar and Richmond CA restaurant “Cabaret Tehran,” private parties

Audience age All ages yet mainly middle- Dominantly consumed by the age and older generations younger generation, Children of Revolution Type of Scene Local in production and Translocal in both production translocal in consumption and consumption Audience nationality Mainly Iranian, an inner- Non-Iranians included and directed scene invited, an outer-directed scene

Migration 1st Wave; post-revolution 2nd Wave: post-Ahmadinejad (1980s) and Green Movement (2000s) Lyrical Content Love and Romance, Socio-political commentary, Homeland Longing and Self-reflection, Romance, Nostalgia Less frequent homeland Musical elements Persian dance tunes with Soft and pop rock forms, 4/4 dominant 6/8 beats, standard meter, no dance tunes, forms, Iranian style violin fusions with traditional (microtones), borrowings Persian and non-Iranian from Latin and Western musics, diverse forms popular music, chorus-verse including chorus-verse, forms binary and trinary forms Production labor division singer songwriter division, Group work and workshop defined roles for composer, production, singers are lyricist and arranger mostly the songwriters

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Table 1-3. Continued Surrounding discourses Considered as celebratory Considered as intellectual and (Chapter 4 further discusses music, vulgar and shallow meaningful because of its MLA and MM dominant because of its lyrics, innovative sounds and visuals discourses and notions of standardized forms, roots in as well its meaningful texts authenticity and value) low brow traditions, with social messages coming dominance of dance tunes, from its roots in Iran’s and visual contents Underground Music

Authenticity and value Inauthentic, outdated, Authentic, relevant and (common views on MLA and irrelevant and exaggerated. relatable. Nostalgic of recent MM) Nostalgic of old times/young adulthood times/childhood

Figure 3-1. Graph explaining different branches of Iranian/Persian music in the US.

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Figure 3-2. Susan and Aghasi on the cover of Zan-e Rooz magazine (possibly late 1960s), captured from YouTube.17

Figure 3-3. Susan’s commemoration ceremony in Los Angeles; undated video, possibly the late 1990s. Image captured from YouTube.18

17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIvx1F9_DqI.

18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TNT8SLPtyc.

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Figure 3-4. Andy Madadian performs in Mehregan celebration, San Jose CA, September 7, 2017. Photo by the author.

Figure 3-5. Norooz Event in San Francisco Union Square, March 3rd, 2019, supported by DAC. Photo by the author.

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Figure 3-6. Farhang Foundation Norooz Event at UCLA, March 2018. Source: Farhang Foundation Instagram Page.

Figure 3-7. Farhang Foundation Norooz Event 2019 (1398) Banner.19

19 https://farhang.org/events.

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Figure 3-8. Sattar’s performance in Cabaret Tehran, November 17, 2017, photo by the author.

Figure 3-9. Belly dancer in Cabaret Tehran, November 17, 2017, photo by the author.

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A B C

Figure 3-10. Screenshots from Twitter. A) Ali Azimi’s Tweet sharing the news of his album release B) A fan’s Tweet sharing the GoFundMe link for Azimi’s supporters outside Iran20 C) Mohsen Namjoo Tweet.21

20 Tweet translates to “Ali Azimi is gathering funds for the production of his third album From Love and Other Satans. Friends who live outside Iran and can contribute, please help because art still needs our support” (translated by author).

21 “your support for Mohsen Namjoo’s campaign on GoFundMe makes the production of the next two albums possible. The albums will be sent to various music festivals including the Grammys. We have already gone half the way. Accompany us with your support.”

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Figure 3-11. Erwin Khachikian and Friends’ gig in San Francisco, April 2018. Photo by the author.

Figure 3-12. Sara Naieni’s performance in San Francisco, June 30, 2018. Photo by the author.

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A B

Figure 3-13. Photos from Mohsen Namjoo’s Album Release in San Francisco (Central Stage), June 2, 2018. A) Namjoo performing a few songs from his new album, B) Namjoo signing his albums for his fans after the show, photos by the author.

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CHAPTER 4 ETHNICITY, IDENTITY AND POLITICS OF BELONGING IN US-BASED PERSIAN POPULAR MUSIC SCENES

I attended Mohsen Namjoo’s concert at UC Irvine in March 2016 hoping to have a chance to see him backstage and talk to him about my research. As I had expected, the majority of the audience, with the exception of very few individuals in their fifties or so, were Iraninan migrants of the brain drain wave. During the show, Namjoo asked the audience to sing along with him. Surprised by the fact that most people knew the words and melodies, Namjoo commented between the songs “I did not expect to have audiences in Southern California. After all, I am not a pop singer.” A middle-aged couple sitting next to us looked at us and shyly asked

“you know the words? you understand what he is singing?” Responding “yes, we have listened to him for a long time. We know his songs,” I pondered the complex level of socio-cultural capital it required to understand and appreciate Namjoo’s songs. Even though the couple were

Farsi speakers, simply having left Iran before the revolution and having lost contact with life and popular culture of Iran had resulted in their alienation in the context of the concert. They did not see themselves belonging to the crowd. Namjoo’s audience is largely young, mostly urban, middle class, educated, and cosmopolitan Iranians who share the experience of having lived in post-revolutionary Iran and the war years. Sharing these experinces with his fans, Namjoo has been very successful in reflecting on them in his music. Consequently, those who have not lived in Iran since the revolution have less access to the meaning of his songs. Namjoo’s music thus has become a marker of intracommunal multifaceted differences.

Music is key to the formation of collective identity and maintenance of social groups.

Through dance and music, individuals express shared aspects of identity and claim membership to a community (Turino 2008: 2). Music can also be a strong marker of difference through which individuals dissociate self from others with dissimilar interests and values. For transnational

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communities such as the Iranian diaspora, music serves as a vehicle for enacting social relationships, expressing pluralistic notions of self and community, enhancing cross-cultural understanding and communication, creating cohesion and strengthening collective consciousness across geopolitical and national boundaries. Among members of the displaced communities, musical activities and tastes are utilized in processes of self-presentation and function as strategic acts of boundary making.

During the past forty years, Iranians have utilized popular music to maintain ties with the homeland and express their collective identity, culture and heritage in the host society. Persian popular music has been present in public and private cultural festivities and gatherings, bringing the highly diverse community of Iranians together around events featuring music and dance.

According to sociologist Akbar Mahdi (BBC TV Pargar 2016),

what unites Iranians above issues of class, religion, and politics is the culture, and culture is arts and music. Iranians get together across all differences in the artistic realm… the biggest Iranian gatherings that we see in Los Angeles are when Mr. Shajarian has a concert or some other famous stars… of course there is also Persian food, Persian rugs, the heritage and Persian pride, … in Los Angeles, I can show you houses with Persepolis pillars and pictures of Cyrus the Great engraved on stone walls.

Mahdi’s observation about food and heritage as commonly-shared features of nationness among Iranians in diaspora is accurate. However, his argument about the role of Persian music uniting Iranians across differences is only partially accurate. Iranian exiles of the 1980s do share a love and respect for Persian art/traditional music (the example of Mohammad Reza Shajarian), while the next wave of Iranian migrants (who are in their third and fourth decades of life) express much less appreciation for the cultural traditions of the past including Persian art music.

The young generation of migrants have different musical choices and tastes in the popular music domain as well. Previously, there was general agreement on the place of mainstream MLA, particularly dance tunes, as commercial “pop” among Iranians at home and in diaspora. MLA

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was consumed as the only style of Persian popular music until the emergence of other contemporary styles in Iran and later in diaspora. With the emergence of other styles, the public view and musical values associated with MLA faced a drastic transformation. What used to unite

Iranians across all differences became a marker of distinction itself as migrants of brain drain introduced and demanded new styles of music to express their changing experiences. Although some MLA artists are still revered by the majority (such as Googoosh and Ebi), other styles of

Persian popular music appear to be appreciated only by certain groups of people with unique tastes.

As Baily’s ethnographic and comparative study of Afghan music in Mashhad, Peshawar and Fermont California (1999) reveals, music can function as a vehicle for expressing social conflicts within different ethnic groups and lead to further division rather than cohesion. While for Afghans the divisions are mainly ethnolinguistic, for Iranians in exile distinctions are more complex, stemming from conflicts over political and religious diversity as well as socio-cultural hierarchies linked to class standing. According to Mahdi (BBC TV Pargar 2016), elements of distinction among Iranians in diaspora link to class and financial status, education, duration of migration, religion, and politics. For the highly diverse community of Iranian in the US, music functions as both a glue strengthening the fabric of the community while simultaneously dividing it on the basis of musical tastes that manifest in participation or non participation in MLA and

MM music scenes.

Over the past decades, much multidisciplinary scholarly attention has been given to the function and perception of MLA (the earlier style) in relation to the past and contemporary homeland (Breyley and Fatemi 2016; Hemmasi 2010). Largely neglected has been attention to its more recent diasporic competitor (MM), the nature/dominant discourses of the two music scenes

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among Iranians, and the relations between the two. Addressing the gap, this chapter explores the complex processes of (dis)identification, identity negotiation, and boundary making within the

US-based Iranian diaspora.

My initial curiosity about covert functions of music as acts of boundary making and disidentification was ignited by an incident that took place within my group of friends while I attended the University of Florida. A friend was invited to an MLA singer’s concert in Boca

Raton by his girlfriend. Upon sharing the news with his friends, he faced much ridicule, criticism and judgement not only based on his decision to attend such a low-brow musical event, but also because of his girlfriend’s taste in music. The mockery annoyed him enough that he returned the ticket to his girlfriend and explained how his peers had reacted. She was so offended by the labels of shallowness and mockery of her taste that she broke up with him. While it might seem to be a joke to lose a girlfriend over musical taste, for me it was the initiation of inquiry into the importance of taste and meaning of music among Iranians. What makes MLA so shallow and of low value? Why is the young generation so critical of it?

From the perspective of MM, in this chapter I examine the relationship between scene affiliations and processes of (dis)identification among Iranians in the US. Drawing on

Bourdieu’s conceptualization of cultural capital (1984) and Wimmer’s theory of ethnic boundary making (2009), I argue that for Iranians in diaspora musical tastes, activities and associations with MLA and MM scenes serve as strong markers of identity, cultural capital and intra- communal positions. Through musical activities, attending concerts, and consuming certain genres, diasporic Iranians both relate to and distinguish self from others as they reveal their position within the community. Participating in distinct scenes, Iranians not only associate with others having common taste, cultural capital and values, but most importantly dissociate

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themselves from others in the Iranian diaspora with distinct musical preferences emanating from social positions and a diversity of views. Thus, scene participation, musical taste, and judgement function as strategic acts of boundary making, identification and disidentifictaion among Iranians whose community is ethno-linguistically, religiously, and politically diverse.

As Frith highlights, the experience of music gives both the producer and consumer “a way of being in the world, a way of making sense of it” (1996a: 114). Our musical choices are closely tied to our perception of self, others and the world we live in. Turino distinguishes self from identity, explaining that self comprises a body plus a set of habits while identity involves a careful selection of habits to represent oneself in different contexts (2008: 95). One’s identity, however, is not limited to the strategies of “self-selection.” People are constantly interpreted and identified by others. Music is a component of such processes of self-representation and identification and is used by individuals to form collectivities of different sorts and sizes.

Within each society people form social groupings or “cultural cohorts” based on certain shared habits and similar interests, or “similarities of parts of self” (Turino 2008: 111). Due to the pluralistic nature of the self, people can belong to multiple cultural cohorts. Cultural formations, however, refer to a group of people who share a majority of habits that constitute key aspects of self such as speaking a language or knowing what a certain body movement means in a specific cultural context. Diasporas, immigrant communities, and “cosmopolitan formations”

(Turino 2008: 117) are three distinct forms of transnational or “transstate” cultural formations each with its own specific features. Immigrant communities are bipolar as they relate themselves to two poles of homeland and the new country, while diasporic formations are multipolar as they combine habits from the original home, the new home, and complex social networks across the world. Formed on the basis of at least a symbolic connection to the home and other diasporic

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members around the globe (118), diasporic communities are cultural formations that draw on multiple locations and cultures in the (re)construction of identities.

Among diasporic Iranians, cultural formations are created based on shared culture and heritage, language, literature, and Persian art, folklore and certain styles of popular music. In diaspora, Iranians also form cultural cohorts based on certain aspects of their identity including political and religious views, artistic values, and musical tastes. Persian popular music is distinctly important in Iranians’ perception of cultural cohorts and formations and their navigation of identity according to each context. For instance, love and respect for Mohammad

Reza Shajarian is widely shared among a majority of Iranians across the world, while there is a diversity of opinions about alternative musicians and MM stars such as Shahin Najafi or Mohsen

Namjoo. One can safely express a lack of appreciation for Namjoo’s music, but they might receive drastic castigation if they share such an opinion about Mohammad Reza Shajarian. Most fans of Persian popular music love Ebi, but there is not much agreement on the musical value of

Persian hip-hop. Simultaneously uniting and dividing Iranians in the US, music plays a contradictory role in drawing internal boundaries in diaspora.

Musical Value and the Concept of Taste

Dominant public discourses on Persian popular music abound with value judgments about musical qualities and taste.1 Consuming and producing agents in MLA and MM scenes constantly judge and label all musical outputs. Consequently, such value judgments of taste gain socio-cultural significance and become features of distinction, identification and disidentification among Iranians at home and in diaspora. In its broadest sense, public discourses of Persian

1 Borrowing from Michel Foucault, a discourse is a constellation of thoughts and expressions that shape people’s understanding of a particular subject.

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popular music distinguish MLA and MM as two ends on the spectrum of musical and intellectual value. Although many enjoy MLA as celebratory or nostalgic music and might be critical of MM as intellectual or snobbish, judgements of musical and aesthetic value prevail in dominant discourses in the public sphere. From the perspective of MM fans, certain styles of MLA such as the meaningless dance tunes are of lower intellectual and artistic value. While MM fans might consume MLA dance music in their parties, they would never label themselves as its fans or serious consumers. Formulaic forms and the dominance of dance tunes and love songs set to a

6/8 rhythm (Auliffe 2011: 64) in MLA over the past four decades have established it as easy listening, inauthentic, and meaningless music (65); functioning as entertaining commodity to be consumed in concerts and parties. MM, however, has gained an aura of intellectuality, authenticity and meaningfulness; a form of popular music for contemplative consumption requiring a certain type and degree of socio-cultural capital, musical knowledge and interpretive skills. Where do such values and attributes come from?

As Frith maintains (1996a: 96), “our reception of music, our expectations from it, are not inherent in the music itself.” The meaning of good music is so unstable and relational that we cannot assign meaning and value to sounds, notes, styles or genres (ibid.:101). Values about particular kinds of music can only be decoded in reference to their surrounding discourses. To understand the distinguishing features and how they function, it is important to first recognize the roots of such value judgments embedded in corresponding discourses.

Discourses surrounding MLA and MM include different meaning and approaches to musical value including the class-oriented high/low hierarchy stemming from the roots of MLA and MM, mode of consumption (intellectual vs. sensual, cognitive vs. physical), as well as the interrelated issues of standardization, autonomy of production and authenticity of expression.

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Understanding different notions of musical value in MLA and MM discourses help us comprehend Iranians’ navigation of identity and ethnic boundary through musical activities in diaspora.

According to Frith (ibid.: 114), a historical examination of debates about musical meaning reveals that the high/low distinction concerns “modes of perception” rather than “the nature of the art object or how it is produced.” It is the distinction between hard and easy listening, between intellectual/serious and sensual appreciation that distinguishes high and low cultural goods. MM has gained a sense of intellectuality due to the mainly cognitive mode of its consumption. Rather than inviting the audience to dance (while some examples may), the focus in the MM scene is to spread a message, share an emotion/thought and communicate. The prominence of dance tunes set to 6/8 rhythm in MLA, however, have established it as dance music produced for physical/sensual consumption in celebratory events. Besides, MLA’s roots in pre-revolutionary Motrebi (itself subject to prior discourses of “lowbrow and vulgar entertainment music”) tradition (Breyley and Fatemi 2016: xvii) and kucheh bazãri (literally “of alleys and bazaars”) (Auliffe 2011: 69), have contributed to discourses locating it as sensual and light entertainment in contrast to MM’s aesthetic and intellectual function stemming from its roots in the underground music (UM) scene in Iran.2 The revitalization of kucheh bazãri tradition in LA through Susan and Hojjati’s performances strengthened the low-brow associations of

MLA. MM, however, emerged and developed as a high-brow, intellectual music because of the dominance of songs with social messages.

The high/low hierarchy is also related to conditions and social forces impacting the production of the music. As Frith (1996a: 119) highlights, discourses on the significance of

2 Further discussed in Chapter 3.

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serious music stems from its believed transcendence of social forces, while the triviality of popular music is linked to its submission to social forces imposed on its production. Using the concept of “culture industry” to criticize mass production of cultural products, Frankfurt School thinkers Horkheimer and Adorno (1947) maintain that the whole world is filtered through the culture industry that controls the production of all cultural commodities and tailors them for the consumption of the masses.

Adorno takes the same approach in his critique of popular music. Comparing popular music production to manufacturing of goods, Adorno argues that popular music is the machinery that produces slightly varied copies of the same thing. To Adorno, the difference between popular and serious music (i.e., low vs. high music) is a matter of adaptation to or rejection of the

“formula” or “scheme” determined by the culture industry (Storey 2006: 76). All innovations

(diversions from the culture industry-imposed formula) are substitutable embellishments with no influence on the entirety of the work.

Using the concepts of standardization and pseudo-individualism in his analysis of popular music, Adorno maintains that the entire structure of popular music, from the most general to the most detailed features, are standardized regardless of aberrations that occur to circumvent such standardization (Storey 2006:11). All forms of musical deviations providing exciting stimuli within the standard form are designed to disguise mass cultural products as innovative art.

Through conventions and formula, music industry familiarizes listeners with musical and extra- musical codes and enables them to appreciate the music using them. Subtle innovations are to create the illusion of individuality and freedom of choice (Storey 2006: 78-79). The end result of the repetition of formulas is “easy listening” popular music. As a consequence of this standardized framework governing popular music, the consumer experiences a pre-given effect

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and fails to perceive it in their own individual way. Complex levels of standardization dictate the listener what to listen to and what to ignore. By setting the standards and governing the production, the music industry shapes musical values and tastes.

While Adorno’s critique has often been received as overgeneralized, biased and ignorant of contradictory examples (e.g., Gracyk 1992; Middlton 1990; Paddison 1982), his analysis of the influence of social forces on musical production and his concepts of standardization and pseudo-individualism help explain notions of musical value and authenticity in MLA and MM discourses. With the settlement of Iranian musicians and singers in Southern California in the late 1980s, an exilic popular culture inclusive of music companies, record labels, and media outlets (radio and television) emerged. As Naficy demonstrates, Iranian television networks in

LA controlled the music scene in all aspects of production, distribution, and promotion (1991).

Conforming to the concept of a culture industry, exilic Persian popular music gradually flourished and established itself as a hegemonic force shaping and controlling not only the musical output of musicians in LA but also the musical taste and expectations of the public.

To Middleton (1990: 50), it is the omnipresence and vast scale of popular music that establishes musical conventions. These formulas, on the one hand, provide a collectively understood basis for the performers as well as listeners/dancers (55). On the other hand, shared repetitions can take on cultural significance, invoking collective socio-cultural and emotional meanings. Creating a monopoly in the cultural and artistic sphere (Naficy 1993: 359-360), MLA has generated and promoted formulas and standard forms such as the 6/8 dance songs and romantic/nostalgic ballads and has discouraged genres such as rock, jazz, and hip-hip. Not only

MLA musicians’ commercial success but also their music’s aesthetic value depends on their submission or opposition to these formulas. To succeed in the MLA scene and become rich and

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famous, musicians need to follow the standards and fit their innovations within the framework if they wish to be supported by MLA labels and media outlets.

Within the MM community of musicians, submitting to industry-imposed formulas is understood as leading to the creation of unoriginal, repetitive, and meaningless music that is easy to listen to and lacks aesthetic/intellectual value. As a result, MLA has become associated with superficiality and inauthenticity in opposition to the perceived authentic and intellectually focused MM which has gained a sense of authenticity through its rejection of industry standards and the agency of musicians and audiences operating outside the mainstream culture industry.

The meaning of the concept of “authenticty” in MLA and MM discourses is related to the work’s sincerity of expression rather than being “historically informed” (Butt 2001). Various factors play into the creation of authentic works including division of labor in production and choice of words in lyrics. While the concept has been important to MM and UM fans as well Persian art music enthusiasts, MLA fans do not prioritize authenticity of expression in their musical choice.

Musicians’ autonomy in the production of MM has a direct impact on the aesthetic value and authenticity of the work. As Bourdieu elucidates through the concept of “pure gaze” (1984:

4), by which he refers to an autonomous field of artistic production and consumption capable of imposing its own norms, an autonomous producer is viewed as a master of their product. (S)He rejects not only the historically imposed rules but also the superimposed interpretations. MM, following its ancestor UM, claims autonomy by working with independent labels and challenging the mainstream industry and its formulaic hits. The relative freedom musicians have in their production empowers them to experiment with forms and express artistic contents more liberally. The end result is a style of music considered authentic, meaningful, and aesthetically valuable by MM fans.

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In addition to the substantial influence of the music industry on music production and the relationship between musicians’ autonomy and musical value, for the audiences of Persian popular music the notion of authenticity is linked to the division of labor in processes of creation.

Singers who sing their own compositions (typical singer-songwriters of MM) are often evaluated as authentically expressing the contents contained inside the song. In contrast, popular singers who sing songs composed by others (typical of MLA) are often evaluated as being less authentic in expressing the meaning of the song. Writing about popular music in general, Brackett notes that conceptualizing the author of a song as outside or inside the text establishes a close connection to the level of authenticity attributed to the song (2000: 84). Self-reflexive lyrics written by singer-songwriters create the impression that the singer is conveying their true feelings. In the MLA scene, music production involves a group of specialized workers with distinct division of labor: composers, arrangers, lyrists, musicians, and singers. In contrast, in the

MM scene, singer-songwriters mostly compose their own lyrics and music and most often play an instrument on stage. The absence of intervening agents in the production of MM gives the music a sense of truthfulness and creates intimacy between the musician and fans. We must take these discursive notions of authenticity into consideration as we examine the musical values attributed to MLA and MM.

As a result of diverse notions of musical value in dominant discourses of MLA and MM, people’s taste and choice of music have become significant markers of aesthetic judgement, artistic values, and most importantly, socio-cultural capital. To engage with a music scene is to reflect on the self against others. As Kruse (1993: 34) highlights, “as much as the word

“identification” seems to imply a sense of belonging, perhaps even more it describes a process of differentiation.” Shared identities are formed out of oppositional stances and defined by

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differences. Exilic Persian music scenes become salient sites for complex processes of identification and disidentification through which Iranians identify with those sharing the same capital, views, and values as they simultaneously disidentify from others.

Bourdieu’s conceptualization of cultural capital and taste as markers of class are enlightening in understanding the strategic acts of boundary making in the MM and MLA music scenes. To Bourdieu (1984), musical tastes correlate with class as different social groups’ cultural capital (knowledge, skills, cultural histories, and exposures) shapes their musical values and impacts their perception of and engagement with the music. The recognized hierarchy of arts corresponds to a social hierarchy of the consumers. Hence, tastes become markers of “class” and cultural nobility serves as a signifier of struggle between groups of people with varied ideas of cultural and artistic values (1984: 2).

As a stage in a process of communication, consumption is an act of decoding a message which requires mastery of the codes. Voir functions as savoir, and a work of art becomes meaningful and an object of interest only to those who possess the cultural competence or the code in the process of artistic/cultural appreciation. Aesthetic enjoyment is thus achieved through a familiarity with the internal logics of works (the object). The audience lacking the code, or the cultural competence, feels lost in the chaos of rhythms, sounds, colors and lines (2). Acquired through contacts with works of arts, such mastery of cultural competence makes the identification of styles, modes of representation, and characteristics of a period or a school possible and enables the audience to be included in the communication. Such competence enables the audience to move from the primary to the secondary stratum of the meaning.

As such, musical taste becomes a signifier of struggle between groups of people. Among

Iranians, appreciating MM (as intellectual) and rejecting MLA (as mere entertainment) indicate

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one group’s self-perceived superiority and reflect intra-communal social conflicts. Although both

MM and MLA fans intersect and may enjoy the same music in certain contexts such as cultural festivities to mark their common nationality in the host society (as a cultural formation), through sub-scene participation, Iranians in diaspora attempt to distinguish themselves from others in the community to avoid negative stereotypes and express a multiplicity of views and identities.

Ethnic Boundary Making

The internal diversity of the Iranian diaspora highlights the problematic nature of assuming coherence and integrity of ethnic cultures. As Wimmer (2009: 245) contends, in many instances the members of a single “ethnic group” might not form a “community” and might not even agree on the relevance of ethnic categories. Rather, individuals with shared backgrounds might employ a diversity of strategies to construct fluid boundaries within the ethnic enclave, assert agency and challenge monolithic readings of ethnic cultural homogeneity. Within larger communities of Iranians, there are numerous enclaves and sub-groups of individuals who share various aspects of their identity including religious and political views as well as cultural and artistic values. The prevalence of labels such as Hezabollahi (literally one belonging to the party of God, generally referring to fanatic religious and pro-Islamic regime individuals), Javad

(individuals with low cultural competency and artistic values), pro-Khomeini, pro-Shah, and pro-

Trump to categorize groups or individuals has led Iranians to claim or reject membership to certain sub-groups/cultural cohorts. A variety of inclusion or exclusion strategies—including musical choices—enable individuals to evade stereotypes and antagonistic responses.

Wimmer (2008) offers a taxonomy of five main strategies of boundary making through which migrants strategically claim membership to subgroups (cultural cohorts) of their community and echo varied aspects of identity to deal with fear, threats, stereotypes and all forms of exclusion or to entice interest and inclusion and blend into the dominant society. These

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strategies include redrawing boundaries by expanding or limiting the domain of people included in one’s ethnic category, modifying existing boundaries by challenging the hierarchical order of ethnic categories, changing one’s position within the ethnic group, and emphasizing other, nonethnic forms of belonging (2008). Iranian migrants expand their ethnic boundaries by attending public cultural events (mainly Persian New Year/ Norooz), and concerts by famous

MLA pop stars and Persian art virtuosi, while they limit their group of people by engaging in certain cultural activities such as attending fine art galleries, political talks, and alternative music

(MM) events.

In other words, Iranian cultural formations use MLA dance music as a point of convergence. Cultural cohorts, on the other hand, use their distinct musical taste and interest in unconventional forms of MM as a source for collective understanding within the group and an element of distinction from other Iranians. As an influential tool in drawing boundaries, popular music has been utilized by Iranians to broaden or limit their surrounding enclave, modify their position within the community and accentuate belonging to other nonethnic groups. Except for the general popularity of MLA in large cultural festivals such as Norooz and the widespread respect afforded the three pillars of Persian pop (Ebi, Googoosh, and Dariush) whose central positions in Persian popular music was established prior to the revolution, the MLA and MM music scenes function as markers of subgroups/cohorts, dividing people on age, taste and cultural capital.

While MLA enthusiasts are ridiculed, labeled as Javad, and regarded as having low cultural competency, which hinders them from appreciating alternative and avant-garde music of

MM artists such as Namjoo, Ali Azimi, and Shahin Najafi, MM enthusiasts are seen as intellectually and musically competent in appreciating this counter-mainstream, meaningful

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music. Such labels are expanded to large communities in LA, Irvine, San Jose, Sacramento, and the San Francisco Bay Area, which as a result host certain kinds of concerts by MLA or MM musicians. Although all musicians perform around the US, MLA stars have their most lavish shows in grandiose venues in Southern California such as the Hollywood Bowl or Kodak Theater and MM musicians mostly perform in university amphitheaters, bars or theaters in the San

Francisco Bay Area.

Simply attending MLA and MM concerts reveals much about such distinctions in terms of types of performance and consumption. At a large concert by MLA icon, Ebi, in Miami in

2015, I found the audience dancing, socializing with others, and drinking alcohol during the show, while Ebi appeared drunk on stage, made political jokes, and seemed unable to properly sing. I witnessed the complete opposite in a show by MM artist Mohsen Namjoo in the San

Francisco Bay Area in 2018. The silent and seemingly reflective audience circled around the stage while Namjoo performed music, recited his poetry and shared philosophical and political thoughts. Although the same group could have attended both shows, their consuming behavior was drastically different in the two settings.

While MLA remained the most widespread celebratory musical form in diaspora and at home until the mid-2000s, paradoxically it never enjoyed a high cultural status (Auliffe 2011:

66). Rejecting its hegemonic dominance, a younger generation of musicians in Iran began to critique MLA as trivial. Some even reacted by musical mockery and harsh criticisms. In 2009, famous formerly underground, now exiled, hip-hop band, Zedbazi, released “Irooni-e LA” (“LA

Iranian”) to ridicule and respond to MLA pop stars’ disapproval of Persian rap produced in Iran.

Reacting to MLA stars who castigated underground rap for cursing, normalization of drug use and violence, and for lacking musical value, Zedbazi not only labeled MLA as shallow and

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stinky but also derided and berated the Iranian community living in LA describing them as superficial and ignorant imitators of American culture. Zedbazi’s musical critique was later set to a carefully curated collection of scenes from Bravo TV reality series “Shahs of Sunset” to highlight the hedonistic lifestyle of wealthy Iranians in LA.

Various factors play into the perceived superficiality and triviality of MLA and the intellectuality and authenticity of MM. In the case of MLA, these factors include its roots in pre- revolutionary Motrebi (“lowbrow and vulgar entertainment music”) tradition and kucheh bazãri

(“of alleys and bazaars”), colloquial lyrics without much intellectual substance, standardization of forms, sounds, images and contents by losanjelesi pop industry, dominance of 6/8 dance tunes, attributed sexuality and dance engagement, division of labor between songwriters, lyricists and vocalists resulting in distance between the singer and song messages, spatial and temporal distance from the contemporary Iranian society and close linkage to Southern California Iranians who are interpreted as Westernized, affluent, arrogant, and superficial (Waldinger and

Bozorgmehr 1996).

Contrary to MLA, MM has gained a sense of intellectuality, authenticity, and meaningfulness through a variety of factors including its roots in Iran’s underground music scene, musicians’ relative autonomy in production and dissemination and the elimination of specialized lyricists and composers as singers mostly write their own lyrics and compose their own music. The majority of MM artists in California were formerly Iranian underground musicians who migrated to Europe and North America during the Ahmadinejad era (2005-2013).

Due to the fact that the category of underground music (UM) is seen as meaningful, defiant, nuanced and expressive of social realities of contemporary Iran (Auliffe 2011: 65), MM has gained an aura of truthfulness and relevance for members of the diaspora.

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Engagement with MLA and MM scenes functions as a strong marker of socio-cultural capital and aesthetic values and a strategic act of boundary-making among Iranians who employ various strategies to draw lines between self and others in their hierarchical and diverse community in order to clarify their views and positions in relation to the host and home countries. Wimmer’s notion of ethnic boundary making helps explain how diasporic Iranians use their musical taste and activities to mark their generational, cultural, and socio-political ruptures.

As Wimmer highlights, ethnic communities are not homogeneous. Members of ethnic groups employ various strategies to prove their agency and challenge monolithic notions of ethnicity/nationality. Drawing on musical values established in MLA and MM discourses,

Iranians demonstrate their cultural capital, set their ethnic boundaries, and distinguish their cultural formations from cultural cohorts. Doing so, Iranians challenge homogenous readings of

LA Iranians (“Irooni-hãye LA) or US Iranians (“Irãni-hãye Amricã”) and cliched stereotypes such as Irooni gher kamari (“dance devotee Iranians”) or Saltanat Talab (“Royalist”) (BBC TV

Pargar 2016), which may have devastating impacts on their lives.

Conclusion

As the examination of US-based Persian popular music scenes and musical choices of

Iranians in light of Wimmer’s theory of ethnic boundary making and Bourdieu’s concept of taste shows, monolithic readings of ethnic cultures hinder our understanding of intra-communal distinctions and conflicts. For decades the LA based Iranian media outles and MLA shaped and controlled notions of Iranianness abroad. Focusing on pre-Islamic Persian values and Pahlavi- imposed Western ideals (Mostofi 2003: 683), Southern California Iranians created an essentialized and fixated notion of homeland and cultural identity for Iranians. The emergence of millennial Iranians and formation of an alternative music scene with roots in post-revolutionary

Iran in the 2000s, however, challenged such exclusionary and homogenous narratives.

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The development of an alternative scene depicts an awareness of generational, cultural, and socio-political breaks among Iranian migrants. Moreover, the connection with and perception of life in post-revolutionary Iran impacts displaced Iranians’ notions of nationness and sense of collectivity abroad. While alternative music is commonly conceptualized as counter-mainstream, it cannot be reduced simply to issues of control over production and distribution. As in Punk or college music, agents involved in the production and dissemination of alternative music implicitly define themselves by claiming uniqueness in their musical products and in their audiences (Kruse 1993: 35). Consumers also view themselves as exceptional and capable of perceiving such distinctive musical outputs and claiming participation in a musical scene. In the case of MM, the uniquesness of taste speaks to the uniqueness of life experiences as

Iranians and as migrants. MM thus functions as an important outlet for the brain drain migrants to express and reflect on notions of self and community and defy the established conventions.

The concept of music scene, referring to clusters of musicians, producers and fans sharing common musical tastes and collectively distinguishing themselves from others, is helpful in illuminating the complex web of Persian popular music. Persian popular music as the overarching music scene consists of MLA and MM exilic sub-scenes as well as subcategories of authorized and underground music produced inside Iran. Despite the fluidity of the scenes and overlap of membership, particular participants and agents engage with either one to express certain aspects of their identities. Notions of musical value, authenticity, and superficiality are key in Iranians’ musical judgement and choices, through which they negotiate their position within the Iranian community.

MLA and MM form a dialectical pair of music scenes with paradoxical functions of bringing people together on the basis of shared culture and heritage and separating them on

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socio-cultural positions, musical tastes, and artistic values. While MLA and Persian art music construct boundaries around Iranianness abroad, MM draws lines between first and second waves of Iranian migrants belonging to two distinct generations living in pre and post- revolutionary Iran. Functioning as a divisive factor marking intra-communal stratification and power relations, the choice to affiliate with the two scenes distinguishes members of the Iranian community; revealing distinctions in generational, cultural, social, and political stances. This study of music scenes rejects essentialized views of ethnic cultures’ boundedness, brings attention to strategies of boundary making and elucidates complex functions of music in

(re)producing polycentric and fragmented identities and fluid notions of nationness and belonging in diaspora.

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CHAPTER 5 REQUIEMS FOR THE MOTHERLAND: NOSTALGIA, HOMELAND LONGING AND BELONGING IN EXILIC PERSIAN POPULAR MUSIC

I have moved back and forth between Iran and the US since I first moved here in the 1970s. As Namjoo says “Eshgh Hamishe Dar Morãje’e Ast” (Love always returns). The last time I returned to the US was in 2006 during Ahmadinejad era. It was the time I decided to stay here (Nazy, Personal Conversation, CA, 2018).

The notion of a collective identity based on a shared homeland is intrinsic to all diasporic communities. Retaining linkages to the homeland through a shared history of migration, a common language, and culture allows migrants to create a collective identity in the face of hostility and the traumatic experience of displacement in a new land. The homeland continues to exert influence on diasporic subjects’ emotions and identity. Depending on the political, historical, and cultural circumstances, diasporic members constantly reshape their relationships with the homeland, attempting to survive in the new setting. A desire to return home and to reconnect to the lost past is a core aspect of a diaspora. A diasporic community’s existence is dependent on maintaining a sense of belonging to a homeland, to which one may or may not return.

For Iranians, whose experience of migration over the past four decades since the Islamic revolution has been marked by antagonism and fear in the host country and reports of tumultuous events at home, the idea of an originary homeland has served as an anchor for diasporic identity.

Like other displaced groups, Iranians have sought a diversity of artistic ways to express their nostalgic longing for the homeland. In this chapter, I examine the musical and lyrical expressions of nostalgia and longing for the homeland expressed in two styles of diasporic Persian popular music: Musiqi-ye losanjelesi (MLA, Music of Los Angeles) and Musiqi-ye mostaghel (MM,

Alternative Music).

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Taking a comparative approach, I explore the transformation of narratives of nostalgia and linkages to the heritage and motherland found in these two musical styles. I draw on Boym’s conceptualization of nostalgia as restorative and reflective (2001) to argue that the evolution of nostalgic narratives in exilic Persian popular music lyrics depicts 1) Iranian emigrants’ shifting relationships with home and host countries and 2) Iranian-American diasporic identity’s transformation from dualism to transnationalism. Revealing the fluidity of diasporic identities and the diversity of migrant experiences, the analysis of homeland narratives in MLA and MM sharpens our perception of Iranian diaspora’s dynamism in its relationship with the home and host countries in the context of rapid global socio-political changes.

Nostalgia in Popular Culture

As a universal human sentiment, nostalgia is found in all aspects of popular culture and has become a key component of the culture industry. The ambivalence of nostalgia (whose alluring object is elusive; being elsewhere, another time, or a better life) has made it a significant component of popular culture. Neither technological advances nor globalization has led to the alleviation of nostalgic longing. Contrarily, we can observe a global epidemic of nostalgia as an antidote to globalization, a yearning for continuity in the face of a fragmented world and a longing for a community with a collective memory.

The commodification and institutionalization of nostalgia began in the 19th century. The emergence of the concept of nation-state based on a social and emotional contract emphasizing the charisma of the past led to the rise of public nostalgia as a historical emotion and coincided with the birth of mass culture (Boym 2001: 15). The past became represented as heritage in national museums and urban memorials, archives, and private collections. Technological advances in the twentieth century led to further prevalence of nostalgic images and narratives and saturated popular culture with sounds and pictures of the past by employing cinematic

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effects and music production techniques such as sampling. Monetizing a widely shared human emotion, global popular culture has profited from the public staging of nostalgic longing in numerous ways.

Among Iranian migrants, whose nostalgic desire and yearning for a sense of collectivity and community are prominent aspects of identity and experience of migration, nostalgia has become a pronounced component of the popular culture they consume. As Hamid Naficy highlights (1991: 285), nostalgia becomes a major cultural and representational practice among the exiles that experience a double sense of loss—of origin and reality—in the context of deterritorialization and postmodern fragmentation. Attempting to recover a lost sense of coherence, Iranian exiles have depicted their nostalgic longing for the motherland not only as a sentiment of suffering but also as a defense mechanism in the face of an antagonistic host society. Through public expressions of nostalgia in exilic media and arts, particularly in the field of popular music, Iranians have communicated and reflected on their diasporic subjectivity and notions of collectivity.

Nostalgia in Exilic Iranian Arts

Nostalgia and homeland narratives are noticeable in exilic Iranian arts. As one of the most recurrent literary genres in Iranian American literature, memoirs (particularly by women) have largely addressed the ambivalence of homeland longing and belonging (Darznik 2008;

Hakim 2006; Motlagh 2008; Nasrabadi 2011). Highlighting the importance and recurrence of home return in this literary form, Darznik calls exilic Iranian memoirs “return narratives” and describes them as simultaneous acts of political witness and intimate self-revelation (2008: 56).

To Darznik, Iran’s history, contemporary culture, and politics play key roles in the exploration and articulation of Iranian American identity. Nasrabadi (2011) also highlights the complexity of diasporic subjectivity and focuses on attempts to recover a lost sense of coherence through

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narratives of home return in three well-known memoirs written by Asayesh (1999), Bahrampour

(1999), and Moaveni (2005). To Nasrabadi (2011: 488), the melancholic agency of these memoirs empowers them to create “alternative strategies of belonging” for diasporic citizenship.

Nostalgia has a dominant position in Iranian exilic media as well. Compared to literature, exilic media, including television and radio broadcasts, has increased popularity among Iranians in the US. As Naficy contends, US-based Iranian media have been more successful in representing exiles than literary forms (1993: xvi). He argues that through popular culture and television programs, Iranian exiles in LA create and convey their own experiences of homeland departure, liminality, and integration while simultaneously resisting differentiation/alienation and marginalization. As a result, exile media have constructed a symbolic culture, which, on the one hand, evokes values linked to the community’s past by emphasizing nostalgia, collective loss, memory, and longing for a return to an idealized ancestral home, and on the other, evokes the present by transforming nostalgic cultural artifacts into valued consumer products of the present.

Intensified by the inability to return, homeland longing is the moving force for exilic arts and a source on which popular culture (particularly music videos) capitalize (Naficy 1993: 288-

289). Drawing on Edward Said’s Orientalism (1979), Naficy maintains that the nostalgic past is an ideological construct of the exilic narratives. To resist the loss inherent in the nostalgic past, exilic popular culture resorts to souvenirs, objects and elements of nature, which serve the dual function of authenticating the past and discrediting the present (ibid: 289). Narratives, icons, symbols, and imported Persian arts and crafts act as cultural mnemonics through which “the inhabitants of liminality” (the exiles) attempt to communicate their native values to both the host society and the next generations (ibid: 290). Such objets d’art and handicrafts construct codes of

“distinction and taste”—to borrow Bourdieu’s words (1984). Not only do they establish cultural

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and ethnic differentiation from the host country but also maintain continuity with an idealized home and history (300).

Music, particularly popular music, is a key aspect of displaced communities’ arts and culture. As important economic and ideological forces driving Iranian exilic popular culture

(Naficy 1998), music videos have transformed the nostalgic representations of homeland to desired commodities. Examining the recurrent themes in exilic music videos (MLA in the

1990s), Naficy offers a classification of “death videos,” “videos of nostalgia and return,” “militia videos,” “hybrid videos,” “tough guy videos,” and “long-form critical videos” (ibid. 64).

Through his examination of music videos, Naficy observes a lessening of nostalgic longing and a deepening engagement with here and now. Propagating narratives of home return through music videos featuring themes of “return to nature, return to origin, and symbolic construction of ethnicity and nationality,” exile-produced television programs enable immigrants to mark their ethnic boundaries and promote solidarity (Naficy 1991: 296). Simultaneously, commercial advertisements linked to such videos encourage economic and cultural integration of Iranians into the American society. Exile media thus plays an instrumental role in not only Iranians’ expression and maintenance of alternative identities and pluralistic worldviews but also their assimilation into the American culture.

Inspired by Naficy’s categorization of exile music videos and sundry themes of home return, I identify five major themes found in Persian exilic music: 1) loss and suffering 2) liminality and ghorbat (“a foreign place, state of being a foreigner and outsider”), 3) glorification of the past and idealization of the homeland, 4) unity and reconstruction, and 5) “hope” for a home return in the MLA scene, and a dominant theme of “despair for return” in MM. Examining homeland narratives in MLA and MM, I argue that the mitigation of nostalgic enthusiasm in

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exilic Persian popular music and a shift from hopeful narratives to a despair for home return demonstrate a major change in Iranian emigrants’ relationship with the home and host countries over the past few decades.

Struggling with an antagonistic host society, impacted by the exacerbation of Iran and US relations, and having lost hope for a better future at home, Iranian migrants have transformed their music from romanticized longings for the homeland to reflective narratives of a temporal rather than spatial nostalgia which takes the postmodern world’s ruptures into consideration. A change in the perception of migrants’ linkages with home and host countries is indicative of significant transformations in migrants’ conceptualization of self and collectivity. While Iranian exiles of the 1980s have retained their hope for a home return, those of the brain drain movement

(who lived in post-revolutionary Iran and left the homeland under drastically different circumstances) show less nostalgic enthusiasm for return. The result is that Iranian-Americans have changed from a binary Iranian/American understanding of their identity toward a more pluralistic, transnational, and subjective diasporic identity. Thus, rather than attempting to decode a unified Iranian emigrant identity, we should reflect on traits, transformations, and strategies of identity negotiation in varied domains of human interactions including music scenes. Prior to examining specific songs and themes, it is important to clarify the concept of nostalgia as an analytical framework.

Nostalgia: History, Meaning and Typology

The word “nostalgia” (from nostos—return home, and algia—longing) is the state of yearning for an abandoned or no longer existent home (Boym 2001). As a sentiment for experiencing loss and displacement, nostalgia can only persist in a long-distance relationship. To some, experiencing nostalgia may be a positive anchor to the past that bonds communal relationships. To others, however, it might be a negative sentiment, triggering fears and

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paralyzing the individual. Nostalgia is a common condition in the postmodern world whichis marked by increased migrations of the people across the globe.

Nostalgia challenges the modern idea of time, history, and progress. While at the first glance it appears to be a personal sentiment, nostalgia goes beyond the individual sense of self and is an important way for diaspora and other migrant communities to deal with their displacements in place and time. At the outset, nostalgia might appear to be simply a longing for another place but is also a yearning for a different time. What makes nostalgia paradoxical is that while feelings of longing can serve to unite members of displaced communities, the notion of actual return to a different time or place creates boundaries and puts an end to mutual understanding. While algia (longing) is what we share, nostos (the actual return home) is what divides us. In other words, although the sense of longing for another time or place (even imaginary) is shared among the displaced, the home return is not always desired or feasible for all. The feasibility and conditions of return create distinct narratives of homeland and further divide the community on the notion of home return. According to Boym (2001), the mourning of displacement and temporal irreversibility that exists at the core of the modern condition makes nostalgia not merely an individual sickness but a symptom of our age, a historical emotion.

Nostalgia is not always about the past. It can be retrospective but also prospective.

Imaginations of the past re-examined in the present condition have direct impacts on realities of the future. Unlike the individual sentiment of melancholia, nostalgia is about the relationship between individuals and collective groups, some as large as nations, between personal and collective memory, identity, and biography. Stressing the collective yet divisive nature of nostalgia, Boym introduces the term “off-modern” to refer to a tradition of critical reflection on the modern condition that incorporates nostalgia to offer critiques of both the modern fascination

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with newness and the not-so-modern reinvention of tradition (2001: xvi). In the off-modern tradition, reflection and longing go together. For many off-modernists and displaced people, creative thinking of nostalgia serves not only as an artistic device but a survival strategy and a way of dealing with the impossibility of home return (ibid.: xvii). Boym also asserts that artistic expressions among the off-moderns explore the hybrids of the past and present (2001: 30).

Rather than being mutually exclusive, affection and reflection are imagined as reciprocally illuminating.

The shifting notion of nostalgia from Maladie du pays to mal du siècle, from a curable disease to an incurable condition, leads Boym to offer a typology of nostalgia into two categories: restorative and reflective. Rather than explaining the nature of longing, this categorization casts light on how we perceive our homesickness and our relationship to a collective home. This classification of nostalgia enables us to differentiate “national memory” created based on a single hegemonic narrative of national identity from “social memories” consisting of collective frameworks. Boym’s two kinds of nostalgia describe the individual’s relationship to the past, the home, the imagined community (Anderson 1983), and to one’s perception of self (2001: 41).

Stressing nostos, restorative nostalgia attempts to reconstruct the lost homeland in a transhistorical way. In contrast, reflective nostalgia emphasizes the longing itself (algia) and delays the homecoming. Restorative nostalgia conceptualizes itself as truth and tradition.

Reflective nostalgia, however, realizes the ambivalences of human longing and the contradictions of modernity. Unlike restorative nostalgia that attempts to protect and restore that which is asserted as the truth, reflective nostalgia questions it. Restorative nostalgia lingers on

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reconstruction, while reflective nostalgia focuses on the ruins, the passage of time, the dreams of another time and place (Boym 2001: 41).

Underlining the desire to return as a single original status, restorative nostalgia

(restoration from re-staure—re-establishment) creates ahistorical snapshots of a past in an attempt to evoke a collective national sense of history and heritage. Reflective nostalgia, on the other hand, is more concerned with individual and cultural memory. Restorative nostalgia draws on collective pictorial symbols and oral expression including folk music, while reflective nostalgia encourages individual narratives and critical reflection on personal experience of spatial and temporal distance from the homeland.

The distinction between mourning and melancholy in personal and collective aspects is enlightening in distinguishing the two types of nostalgia. To Freud, melancholia is the result of a breakdown in the mourning process during which time the individual has failed to detach themselves from a lost, desired object and reconnect to a new one (1963). Mourning, however, is connected to a sense of loss; loss of a loved one or an abstraction such as a homeland, another time such as childhood, or an ideal (ibid.). Mourning alleviates with the passage of time needed for grief. In the state of melancholia, however, the loss is unconscious and unclear. Melancholia does not mitigate with grieving the loss.

Eng and Kazanjian (2003:2) distinguish mourning as normal and melancholy as aberrant.

They consider melancholy the result of collective traumas associated with historical events such as revolution, war, and migration. In the US context, for most displaced groups mourning is a finite process aligned with the American myth of migration that ends with assimilation into the society of dominant white groups. Melancholia, however, portrays an unresolved process that effectively describes the turmoil of immigration and the problematic nature of assimilation

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(2003: 345). Through a mourning process one abandons lost objects while the melancholic subject pursues an open and continuous relationship to the past, which leads to new perspectives on the loved lost objects. Therefore, melancholia contributes to creative processes through which the lost objects are remade, reconnected with, and (re)conceptualized. It becomes a source of creativity as is the case with exiled Iranian musicians who have created and transformed the nature of their narratives of homeland in their artistic work over the past four decades. I argue that, utilizing melancholic agency, Iranian musicians in both MLA and MM scenes reimagine the abandoned homeland and their position in the host country while telling diverse stories of displacement. In the next section, I will analyze how melancholic agency is/was utilized and transformed in the MLA and MM scenes.

Nostalgia in Exilic Persian Popular Music

Nostalgia in Musiqi_Ye Losanjelesi (MLA)

“Exile is a dream of glorious return” (Rushdie 1988: 205).

Soon after the settlement of Iranian musicians in Southern California, LA became a center for the exilic Iranian popular culture (Auliffe 2010: 60). The popularity of pre- revolutionary stars such as Ebi, Sattar, Dariush, Hayedeh, and Shohreh Solati on the one hand, and the absence of rivals inside Iran during the first two decades after the revolution (Auliffe

2010:64-65) on the other, led to the success of LA-based Persian popular music (MLA). With the support of affluent Iranians, exilic television channels emerged and began to function as sites for public expression and communication in the community. Music videos (along with political debates, talk shows, and commercials) became a significant component of these television channels (Naficy 1998). At home, despite the Iranian regime’s ban on satellite receivers, exile television channels became the key distributors of MLA.

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Until the relaxation of regulations on popular music inside Iran in the late 1990s, MLA was a musical staple of Iranian celebrations and parties. Moreover, it functioned as a communicative platform linking Iranians in diaspora and at home; spreading emotions, concerns and thoughts of the displaced. Homeland narratives emerged as particularly important features of

MLA songs as the exiled stars reflected on their new life and expressed their position in the new music scene in LA. The vast number of songs expressing melancholic and nostalgic longing for the abandoned homeland, the past, and a better time underscores the significance of such narratives in expressing suffering among the emigrants. As Naficy (1998) highlights, musicians and video artists in the MLA scene worked hand in hand to revive the sounds and images of the homeland in music videos through various themes including nature and heritage.

Expanding on Naficy’s categorization of homeland themes in MLA, I identify five main types of homeland narratives as expressions of 1) loss and suffering, 2) estrangement, liminality and ghorbat, 3) unity and a desire for reconstruction of the homeland and restoration of the imagined Iranian community, 4) glorification of the homeland and heritage, and 5) hope for return. Highlighting the producers’ melancholic agency, the repertoires of established and emergent MLA stars are saturated with these restorative nostalgic themes, particularly in songs produced between the 1980s to the 2000s. Although there has been a decline in the total number of songs with homeland themes, these themes remain prominent in MLA musical outputs.

The number of songs mourning the forced displacement, collective loss, and suffering grew exponentially in the 1980s particularly in the songs of MLA artists Hayedeh, Sattar,

Dariush, Moein, and Viguen. A great example for the theme “loss and suffering” is Hayedeh and

Viguen’s duet “Hamkhooneh” (literally “Housemate,” but metaphorically referring to a

“countryman”) which laments the destruction of the homeland and the uprootedness of Iranian

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emigrants (Figure 5-1). Released in 1984, “Hamkhooneh” is a sorrowful narrative of displaced

Iranians’ collective loss (of the homeland) and an unfulfilled desire to reconstruct the homeland.

The hopelessness of the migrant is conveyed in the lyrics translated as "Don't ask me where my home is in the middle of the ruins, what can I tell you (my) tribesman?1 The tribe is displaced."

The word “tribesman,” ham ghabileh in Farsi, is used to evoke the close connection between the people (including diasporic members) as belonging to one tribe despite their ethnic, religious, political, cultural, and economic differences. Musically these dark lyrical sentiments are set in an

E minor tonality to a slow tempo. A chorus sung alternatively by male and female voices separates the strophic verses of the song. Images in the video show a black map of Iran symbolizing the community’s mourning and loss. Images, text, and music combine to reflect the anguish of the exiles and to express mourning for the loss of family, memories, and the homeland.

The second most recurrent theme in MLA songs conveys estrangement, liminality and ghorbat (estrangement, the foreign land) and reflects the exiles’ deep anxieties of alienation in the new context. Leaving behind family and friends as well as material wealth and social status in the homeland and confronting an unfamiliar world in the new country of settlement are tormenting experiences for exiles. The so-called Hostage Crisis of the early 1980s exacerbated the condition of displacement for Iranians.2 The discriminatory and resentful reaction from the

American government and people against Iranians further isolated and marginalized the

1 Lyrics are given in the appendix.

2 A group of Iranian students captured the US Embassy in Tehran and took more than 60 American hostages on November 4, 1979 in response to President Carter’s permission to Iran’s expelled Shah to come to the US for medical purposes. The occupation of the US Embassy marked a drastic change in Iran’s relationship with the US and was an attempt to put an end to American interference in post-revolutionary Iran’s affairs. The hostages were released 444 days after the occupation of the Embassy on January 21, 1981.

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diasporic community and led many Iranians to conceal their national heritage. Many individuals changed their names, altered their physical appearances by wearing contact lenses and dying their hair, and began self-identifying as Persian rather than Iranian to distance themselves from the current Islamic government and symbolically link themselves to pre-Islamic Iran (Mobasher

2006: 113). There are many stories shared in the community about discriminations and attacks, at times violent, in light of the Hostage Crisis. Here is one such story I was told by a non-Iranian about how the Hostage Chrisis changed his understanding of the Iranian diaspora.

I had many Iranian friends when I was a student at Fresno State University in the late 1970s. After the Hostage Crisis, an anti-Arab motion was shaped. People confused Iranians with Arabs. I remember people getting beat up and they were not all Iranians, they were Saudis, Pakistanis and Indians… Until I met Iranians, I didn’t know Iranians and Persians were the same. I knew about the Persian Empire, but I was not aware [of the fact that Persia is modern-day Iran] until I moved from Texas to Fresno. They [Iranian students] were my friends, I didn’t think of them as any different, until they [students in Iran] stormed the embassy, and then everywhere we went, EVERYWHERE, from 7Eleven to the mall or even walking to classes people shouted things at them, acted like they were responsible for the hostages. On the street, people would tell us to roll down the window and shouted nasty things… I was protective of my friends. At first, we got into arguments, but as crowds got bigger and more violent, we stayed away from the crowds. (Mike Hodges, Personal Conversation, Fresno CA, August 4, 2017).

Under such traumatizing circumstances, MLA songs began expressing sentiments of intense alienation and rootlessness. The song “Parseh” (Wandering) by Dariush is a great example for the “Estrangement, liminality and ghorbat” theme (Figure 5-2). The lyrics, written by exiled lyricist Ardalan Sarfaraz, convey melancholic reflections on life in a foreign land and express sentiments of marginalization and in-betweenness. The Farsi word “ghorbat” is hard to translate to a single word in English. “Ghorbat” is both a foreign place and a state of estrangement and being an outsider. Referring to an estranged person away from the homeland and implying liminality, the adjective “Gharib” in the first line of the song is a word with

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significant historical and religious connotation in Farsi.3 The video shows the singer Dariush walking down an empty street singing “Parseh dar khãke gharib, parse ee bi entehãst

(wandering in the foreign soil/land, is an endless wandering); hamneshin-e ghorbatam, zãdgãhe man kojãst? (I am estranged, where is my birth place).” In another verse he sings, “Where can we find each other and unite? All these streets end in ghorbat.” Another verse emphasizes the state of uprootedness and a sense of exclusion as he sings “the rootless tree is taken away by the wind, a generation without a history is forgotten in the foriegn land just like the soil (blown in the wind."4 The word khãk (soil) refers to the "homeland," derakht-e bi risheh (the rootless tree) is the immigrant, and the wind is the forcible displacement. Detached from the homeland and not fully accepted into the American society, Iranians experienced liminality. With its poetic lyrics,

“Parseh” gives voice to exilic Iranians’ emotions and fears in the 1990s.

Glorification of the homeland and heritage is another ubiquitous theme in many MLA songs such as “Iran Iranam” (my Iran) by Hengameh, Kamran, and Fereydoun. As Kammen

(1991) notes, heritage is something that usually fills us with pride rather than shame. However, I suggest that the nostalgic recollections of heritage articulated through MLA songs act to minimize personal responsibility and offer the possibility of a kind of guilt-free homecoming for displaced Iranians. Excessive glorification of heritage absolves the individual of blame and moral accountability. A nostalgic longing based on heritage also ties individuals to a large collectivity that has chosen to ignore the shame and responsibility in search for commonality on the basis of glories of the past. Instead of lamenting the collective loss, songs addressing the natural beauties of the homeland and the value of its cultural heritage project an idealized and

3 Religiously, the adjective form “Gharib” is associated with Imam Reza (Ali al-Ridha), the eighth Imam of Twelver Shiites who was murdered and buried in the city of Mashhad in northeast Iran.

4 To save space, translations are given in quotes instead of Farsi lyrics. Full lyrics are provided in the appendix.

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romanticized image of Iran frozen in a distant and heroic past in order to unite all Iranians (in spite of all ethnic, religious, and political diversities) to reconstruct the country.

Such pleas for unity to reconstruct the homeland and restore a lost collective identity are prevalent in MLA songs. The famous song “Dobãre Misãzamat Vatan” (I Will Rebuild You, homeland) composed by singer Dariush Eghbali with lyrics by Simin Behbahani is a great example for this theme (Hemmasi 2017).5 Behbahani’s vivid and musical poem has been very well-known in different contexts (Hemmasi 2017: 195). Sung by the highly-revered singer

Dariush, “Dobãre Misãzamat Vatan” became so successful that in an interview with Hemmasi in

2007 Dariush called it his most successful song (ibid. 196). While the song is produced by a team, the division of labor has not resulted in its inauthenticity. Rather, “Dobãre Misãzamat

Vatan” is very well-received by the people (regardless of their interest in MLA or MM) as an authentic song because of its patriotic feelings. To Hemmasi (ibid.), this song has acquired a nationalistic connotation and is an example of “nationalistic identification” practices to unite conflicting parties and Iranians at home and in diaspora (2017).

In this heroic song, Dariush calls on all Iranians, particularly the youth, to unite and rebuild what political conflicts and the war have destroyed. The video clip uses images of

Persepolis, Cyrus's Cylinder of human rights and his temple as symbolic embodiments of the

Persian heritage. On top of marching rhythms, aggregated staccato strings accompaniment, and a choir of male and female voices, Dariush sings “Dobãre misãzamat vatan, agar che bã khesht-e jãn-e kheesh. Sotoon be saghf-e to mizanam, agar che bã ostekhãn-e kheesh” (I will rebuild you, homeland, albeit with my own body and soul. I will build pillars for your ceiling again, albeit with my own bones"). Aware of the diversity of the Iranian diaspora, musicians such as Dariush

5 Hemmasi (2017) provides an in-depth analysis of this song.

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sought to unite the community by glorifying the land and taking pride in the common (Persian) heritage. Inspired by the poem and the allegory of rebuilding the destroyed homeland using one’s own body, Dariush sang this song to respond to (in his opinion) the need of globally dispersed

Iranians for hopeful musical narratives about the future of Iran and Iranians (Hemmasi 2017:

196).

Among the MLA songs featuring homeland narratives, expressions of hope for return to the home are the most pervasive and prominent. From the early 1980s, Iranian exiles were hopeful that their displacement would be temporary, and MLA songs with optimistic narratives of return have been remarkable elements of exilic artistic productions of Iranians in diaspora.

Moein's "Delam Mikhãd be Isfahãn Bargardam” (I Want to Go Back to Isfahan), Noosh Afarin's

"Dãram Miãm” (I am Coming), and Ebi's “Dãram Miram be Khooneh” (I am Going Home) are some examples depicting MLA’s attempts to reserve the desire for a homecoming within the diaspora. Andy Madadian’s song “Dãram Miram be Tehran” (I am Going to Tehran)—initially released in 2006 with a 2016 version featuring American pop singer La Toya Jackson—is a great example for such hopeful narratives (Madadian and Jackson 2016) (Figure 5-3). This musical collaboration provides new insights on the nature of MLA stars’ (and perhaps its fans’) homesickness and homeland longing. I asked Andy about this song and his idea of home return, and he explained to me that musical expressions of home return do not always indicate homesickness but may function as an act for reviving old memories and the connection with the homeland. To Andy, those who have lived in the US since the revolution no longer see Iran as their home. Their home is the US. Iran is an anchor to their past.

Despite the criticism it received on the irrelevancy of Jackson (an African-American pop singer who has never been to Iran) singing in Farsi “Dãram Miram be Tehran,” her collaboration

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with Andy reflects a transnational approach to music production in the MLA scene. As an

Armenian-Iranian-American pop star, Andy has attempted to promote Persian popular music and advance cross-cultural communication through transnational musical collaborations with several non-Iranian musicians such as the American rock star Jon Bon Jovi and Algerian singer/songwriter Khaled. In our conversation (which took two years to coordinate and take place) in Glendale, CA, in September 2019, Andy explained the importance of global musical collaborations to both elevate and promote Persian popular music and get inspired by non-

Iranian music.

I am active in the Armenian music scene too. I have received multiple awards as a successful Armenian artist. Afghans also listen to Persian music as much as Iranians do. So, when we have tours it is possible to have 20 to 30 percent non- Iranian Farsi speakers including Afghans and Tajiks in the audience. I have collaborated with Afghan singers too.6 I love colloborations and putting talents together. You put two [talents] and your results are three times better (Personal Conversation, CA, 2019).

Taking much pride in his Armenian heritage as well as his Iranianness, Andy has devoted his career to the advancement of both Armenian and Persian popular music. His global collaborations, appearances, and recognitions including his star on Hollywood Walk of Fame indicate the acceptance of Iranians in the American society as an ethnic group with noticeable popular music and culture.

The nostalgic longing for home return articulated in MLA songs, as is the case in other forms of Iranian exilic arts and popular culture, underscores the MLA scene’s restorative approach to nostalgia. For decades, MLA songs have imaginatively and figuratively attempted to restore the abandoned Iranian homeland. Through lyrics, melodies, instrumentations, vocal

6 Refer to Shifah and Madadian (2017).

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techniques, and images, MLA has attempted to keep the memory of homeland and a hope for a return alive. The common homeland-related themes in MLA can be best explained in relation to

Boym’s notion of restorative nostalgia and its two main plots. As the core sentiment of national and religious revivals (Boym 2001: 43), restorative nostalgia employs two main narrative plots: return to origins and conspiracy theory. Being spatially and temporally distant from Iran, MLA has taken a restorative, romanticized approach to describing the homeland by the use of invented traditions in order to convey its patriotic messages and create hopeful narratives of return.

Promoting cultural celebrations, Pahlavi regime mannerisms, and certain features of Iranian culture such as the language, the role of family, and importance of status and occupation, Iranian exile media (and MLA) has constructed and distributed a specific type of Iranian identity through mytho-historical narratives of culture and history (Naficy 1993).

Such mytho-historical narratives are fabricated and propagated in the modern world through what historian Eric Hobsbawn identifies as “invented traditions” (Hobsbawm 1983).

Distinguishing traditional customs from the nineteenth-century “invented traditions,” Hobsbawm maintains that even in traditional societies customs (traditional practices) are not invariant because life is not so. Invented traditions, however, are constructed to appear as invariable and stable customs that remain effective over all temporal, spatial, and socio-cultural fluctuations. As symbolic sets of practices governed by fixed rules, restored or invented traditions are used to implant certain values and norms of behavior into community members to ensure historical continuity. Having a higher degree of symbolic ritualization and formalization than actual customs, such invented traditions are paradoxical on two levels. On the one hand, the more rapid the modernization, the more conservative and fixed new traditions become. On the other, the stronger the emphasis on historical continuity and traditional values, the more selectively they

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represent the past (Hobsbawm 1983: 5). Invented traditions thus create a highly selective, conservative, and engrossed notion of the past to maintain the aura of continuity in the face of socio-cultural disruption and historical rupture. Among the displaced, such as members of the exile Iranian community, invented traditions offer a collective solution to individual longing by constructing narratives of loss of community and cohesion. In the Iranian diaspora, the MLA scene and its songs became a popular forum for expressing restorative nostalgia and melancholy through invented traditions.

MLA is saturated with invented traditions and has created and distributed a fixed image of Iran over the past four decades. A great example for the exaggerated presence of invented traditions in MLA is the song “Jãn-e Man” (2017) by famous MLA singer Moein (Figure 5-4).

Moein, who rose to fame through his mastery of Persian vocal techniques, warm voice, and a unique repertoire of romantic ballads and 6/8 dance tunes, combines Persian traditional vocal techniques (particularly glissando embellishments called tahrir and rubato singing of Persian

Avaz) with Western instruments, harmony, and song forms. Through the choice of specific

Persian musical elements in the vocal style, the dominant 6/8 dance rhythm, and prominent role of the traditional instrument kamãncheh7 playing a solo folk melody between the verses, “Jãn-e

Man” attempts to create an “authentic” aural representation of Iran. The juxtaposition of traditional acoustic Persian musical elements with electronic manipulation of the vocal part and use of sound effects as well as the re-contextualization of the kamãncheh by giving it a solo melody in a popular dance song are examples of invented traditions in the MLA scene. The technological alteration of the human voice is beyond the aesthetic boundaries of Persian

7 The kamāncheh refers to various types of spike fiddle found in Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (During et al. 2001).

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traditional music which values the mastery of vocal techniques such as tahrir and rejects electronic sound manipulation. The de-contextualization of the kamãncheh from its Persian traditional and culturally bounded folk music contexts and its emplacement in a mainstream dance tune is another attempt to create a new (invented) tradition with the aura of authentic continuity with the Persian heritage.

This process is also reflected in the visual content of the song and in the song’s lyrics.

The lyrics use an amalgamation of clichéd, poetic words and non-lexical phrases to express love for an absent beloved. Drawing on Iranians’ collective memory of Persian poetry, the text creates a sense of familiarity and authenticity through the use of repetitive phrases such as shab nãle bidãr-e man (my sleepless nights’ sorrowful laments) and poetic words such as noosh (honey or cheers), atash (thirst), havas-e atr (desire for the scent), which are devoid of meaning and literary value in this context. Some phrases are so meaningless that it was difficult to translate them to English (Lyrics in Appendix).

Visually, invented traditions are highlighted through a stereotypical depiction of black- eyed Persian girls in floral dresses mingling with young men in vaguely Persianized outfits by which I am referring to outfits in certain colors such as red and the Persian blue or tourqoise, velvet fabrics, head scarfs for girls and paisley patterened vests and shirts for boys. The girl in the video wears a long red velvet dress and a red veil with a gold crown. Her outfit conforms to images of Persian women depicted in Persian miniature paintings. The boy wears a turquoise blue (known as Persian blue) vest with the kind of parsley and flower patterns common in

Persian Termeh (a type of Persian handwoven textile, also present in the video covering tables).

The kamãncheh player wears a red shirt with a style of embroidery inspired by Persian rug designs. Other characters in the video also wear vests, long gowns, and veils similar to main

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characters but in different colors. The hoz (a shallow pool central in old Persian architecture) and the kamãncheh player seated on a bed decorated by an abundance of Persian textiles and handcrafts create an exaggerated and unrealistic picture of Iran and Iranianness. While Persian textiles and handcrafts can be found in most Iranian households as decorations, the video depicts them excessively. In totality, the song constructs a selective, glorious, and non-existent version of Iran.

MLA’s restorative approach to nostalgia is further evident in return to origin and glorification of heritage and homeland plots. Using both themes, MLA has long attempted to recreate the image of the homeland in the face of adversities, repair pride through memories of the past, culture and heritage, and perpetuate a desire for homecoming in diaspora. The return to origins plot uses invented, refined, and exaggerated traditions in nostalgic narratives, objects, images, and sounds to revive the lost sense of cohesion and belonging and recover the abandoned homeland. Through an idealization of the motherland, the collective memory of home is

(re)created.

The other commonly used narrative identified with restorative nostalgia is the transhistrical plot of the conspiracy theory. According to Boym (2001: 43), the conspiracy theory distinguishes cultural intimacy from political nationalism. In the conspiracy theory plot, the

“home” is captured by the enemies and now requires a defense. Differentiating us against them, conspiracy creates an “imagined community” based on exclusion rather than affection.

Somebody different from us becomes a scapegoat for our misfortunes. As Boym contends,

“They conspire against our homecoming; hence we have to conspire against them in order to restore our imagined community” (ibid.). The conspiratorial visions, which flourish in the aftermath of revolutions, focus on the creation of a delusionary homeland. Many MLA songs use

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the conspiracy theory plot in conjunction with themes of loss and suffering, liminality and alienation, and messages for unity to reconstruct the homeland. The previously discussed song

“Hamkhooneh” by Hayedeh and Vigeun and “Dobãre Misãzamat Vatan” by Dariush are great examples of the conspiracy plot type.

Utilizing both types of plots, MLA songs expressing restorative nostalgia respond to the pains of temporal distance and displacement inherent in nostalgic longing by diaspora communities. By creating an intimate experience and ensuring the availability of the desired object, restorative nostalgia mitigates the impact of distance from the homeland and suggests home return as a cure to the displacement. Nevertheless, endeavors to glorify the heritage, revive the pride, and foster the hope for a homecoming through invented traditions and nostalgic homeland narratives have not always led to promising results. The fixated new traditions invented to offer a solution to collective and individual sentiments of loss, suffering, liminality, and fear have failed to address the complexities of transnational socio-political and cultural transformations present in diasporic contexts.

At times, such attempts in the MLA scene have created distorted, surreal, and unrelatable images of both contemporary and venerable Iran. Some attempts have become ridiculous as was the case cited earlier with the 2016 version of “Dãram Miram be Tehran” by Andy featuring La

Toya Jackson. Obviously, Andy cannot return to Iran with his dancing crew of scantily dressed girls and a four-decade repertoire of 6/8 MLA dance music. Besides, La Toya Jackson, who imitates the Persian dance as she sings “vãse booy-e koochamoon tange delam, vãse -ye mahalamoon tange delam tange delam” (I miss the smell of our alley and neighborhood…. I am going to Tehran), seems comically absurd. In fact, MLA’s restorative approach to nostalgia and

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its exaggerated representations of Iran through invented traditions are two key reasons for the decline of its popularity among Iranians at home and in diaspora.

Homesick or Sick of Home: Nostalgia in Musiqi-Ye Mostaghel (MM)

With the emergence of Musiqi-ye mostaghel (MM) in diaspora in the 2000s, the MLA scene confronted a powerful rival, and exilic Persian popular music faced major diversification in various aspects of style, form, and content. MM musicians’ relative autonomy in music production and their closer ties to post-revolutionary Iran and its youth (the country’s largest segment of the population), allowed them to create new artistic reflections on the homeland. MM artists such as Ali Azimi, Mohsen Namjoo, and Marjan Farsad began to convey contradictory sentiments of homeland longing and belonging through their music. While nostalgia remained a recurrent theme in the MM scene, it was transformed in light of socio-political transformations at home, in diaspora, and in the host society. Those MM artists, who had lived in post- revolutionary Iran experienced the economic hardships of the war and sanctions and struggled with the Iranian state’s harsh censorship and intrusion in all aspects of life, did not attempt to recreate an exaggerated and glorious image of the homeland. Instead, they reflected on their present condition, on migration and displacement, their double alienation (at home and in diaspora), and on leaving behind family, friends, and memories of the childhood.

Consequently, MM musicians began to voice new messages, attract new audiences, and reshape the linkage between Iranians in diaspora and their homeland. The major theme of “hope for return” promulgated by MLA songs was replaced by a “despair for return.” Furthermore, the

MLA’s glorified notions of homeland were substituted by MM’s more nuanced and realistic images of contemporary Iran. Marjan Farsad’s major hit “Khoone-ye mã” (our home), for instance, focuses on the collective sense of distance from the physical place of the homeland and the sense of removal from the past/the good old days. Utilizing animation techniques, simplicity

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of form and language, bare texture, and an unembellished vocal part, the song paints a realistic image of the homeland with its beauties and memories on the one hand and its melancholies and hardships on the other. Toward the end, a kamãncheh fiddle is added to the musical texture to strengthen the sense of belonging through the familiarity of the instrument’s timbre and melody.

Farsad sings “Khoone-ye mã door-e, posht-e daryã hã, too-ye ye khãb” (Our home is far, beyond the seas, in a dream) (lyrics in Appendix). There is no expression of hope or despair for return to the origin, nor any glorification of what it is or used to be. Beyond good and evil, our home, to which we belong metaphorically and/or literally, exits in spatial and temporal distance.

Another example demonstrating the change of approach toward nostalgic narratives in

MM songs is Mohsen Namjoo’s “Khat Bekesh” (“Cross out Iran” or “Forget about Iran”) (Figure

5-5).8 Namjoo, whose eclectic music draws on the vast repertoire of Persian traditional and folk music as well as Western popular music of various genres, is among the leading (and controversial) musicians of the MM scene. Since his migration to the US in the early 2000s,

Namjoo has not only maintained his fan base inside Iran but also expanded his audience to the diaspora despite all adversities and criticism he has received.9 A defiant musician at home and abroad, Namjoo has attempted to be the voice of the post-revolutionary young Iranians.

8 The idiomatic expression “dore chizi khat keshidan” means to totally forget about something and can be translated to “Cross something out.”

9 Namjoo is criticized for different reasons. On the one side, Persian art music aficionados and advocates criticize him for his innovative approaches in singing and composition and fusions of Persian art with popular music. As Nettl (1972) highlights, Persian art music is strictly policed by musicians, and its transformation is not welcome. On other side, devout Muslims castigate him because of his musical renditions of Quranic and Islamic texts (Keshmiripour 2008). Moreover, his song “Reza Khan,” in which he talks about the character and actions of Iran’s first Pahlavi Shah (Reza Shah, father of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi), brought him much criticism and anger from royalist Iranians in the US. The condemnation was so big that he had to write an article on Persian BBC and explain that the song was a joke and was not an attempt to ridicule or criticize the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty (Namjoo 2014).

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Nostalgia is one of the prevalent themes in Namjoo’s repertoire. In “Khat Bekesh”

Namjoo takes a completely different approach to nostalgia compared to MLA songs. Rather than glorifying the homeland and keeping the hope for return alive, he talks about completely forgetting the homeland. In a personal conversation with Namjoo in Brentwood California I asked:

It is the first example in exilic Persian popular music, which says we should totally forget about the home return. Previously, everyone had said “let’s go home, we will go home.” So, your song is adding something new. What are you saying?

Namjoo responded:

First of all, this is a personal concept. It has no public message and makes no collective claim. It is the personal story of the storyteller. In fact, after two years of migration I got to the point that everything was lost. All bridges were broken. So, I told myself, “do not regret it, cross it out. Keep going.” After this, I rarely wrote anything about Iran and every time I did it was satirical because my whole thinking had changed… Seeing the dark side and thinking about the negative aspects is evident in my works, even in title of albums. My albums are Useless Kisses, In Vein, Trust the Tangerine Peel, Personal Cipher, not even Personal five! There is self-destruction in each one of these. These titles reflect my bitter thoughts, my reflections on [the dark side of] life. It is not just related to my migration. Here [in the US] the issue is displacement; there [in Iran] it is something else. In fact, there is no place that does not remind [me of] the bitterness of life. This life is not black or white. It is all black with some white spots. The white is art, friendship, love, watching a good movie … yet it is only us [the artists and art enthusiasts] who can see the white spots. We are lucky. Ordinary people only see the black. So, all my songs have a satirical tone to remind [me of] this bitterness and pessimism (Personal Conversation, March 2017).

Reflecting on the reception of the song among his fans, Namjoo added that people loved this song, and he never received any major negative feedback because he reminded the audience that it is a personal song before every performance.

I thought it would disappoint people because they love this [my] music, and it can be inspirational to them. So, I always told people that “khat bekesh” has nothing to do with you. You should not feel guilty. You do not cross it out. This is the story of this person sitting here, I am just sharing it. You just enjoy the melody. (ibid.)

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The song, however, acquired an important position among the brain drain migrants whose relocation to the US does not have the prospect of going back home. Namjoo’s personal experiences of life and displacement have been relatable to many of his fans. Several interviewees for this study referred to this song as an example reflecting their perception of migrant life and views on the future of Iran and home return. Thus, although the song is

Namjoo’s very personal reflection on life, it has secured a unique place among the larger community of MM fans. Abbas Pirnia calls the song a “self-portrait” of Namjoo, picturing his migration from the East to the West from the very personal perspective of the artist himself

(Pirnia 2012). Although the song is a personal expression of Namjoo’s experience of self-exile and comes from his nihilistic views on life in general, to many “Khat bekesh” is about life in exile, abandoning the homeland, and having no hope for return.

Musically, “Khat bekesh” is also a unique song in Namjoo’s repertoire. Namjoo has covered many Western hits. Yet, “Khat bekesh” is a distinctive cover song because he fuses

Persian dastgãh of Segãh10 with a cover of Dean Martin’s “Sway” (originally written as a

Mexican Cumbia). Dean Martin’s “Sway” is a globally famous hit that was previously covered by exiled Iranian singer Hooshmand Aghili in LA. Therefore, many Iranians were familiar with the melody of the song before Namjoo’s rendition. Namjoo juxtaposes “Sway’s” melody in the chorus with verses set in Segãh and creates an unpredictable and unfamiliar musical transition.

Responding to my question why he chose “Sway,” and if he wanted to take advantage of

Iranians’ familiarity with the song because of Aghili’s cover version, Namjoo responded:

10 The modal system of Persian art music consists of 12 dastgāhs. Each dastgãh includes a group of pieces generically called gusheh. The 12 dastgāhs are: shūr, abu atā, dashtī, bayāt-e tork (or bayāt-e zand), afshāri, segāh, chāhārgāh, homāyun, bayāt-e esfāhān, navā, māhur and rāst (or rāst-panjgāh) (Lawergren et al. 2001).

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No, I never heard that version. It is the first time I hear this. I just loved the romance of the melody. I put the lyrics on it. The theme just came to my mind. This song is in Segãh. Interestingly, 90% of my songs are in Isfahan/minor key. I have three or four songs in Mãhur, a few in Shour. But only this one is in Segãh. I chose Segãh because it has a gusheh known as mokhãlef, which emphasizes the sixth degree of the key and resolves to Isfahan/the minor key [Mokhãlef makes the transition to the minor key very easy]. The other reason [to choose Segãh] was that it is one of the most obsolete dastgãhs and has the least connection to the modern world… it is the dastgãh of relaxation and gatherings (Bazm, ‘party’)… the context of having no worries and showing no concern for the world.

I asked “but this is very different from this song’s text and atmosphere, isn’t it? This is a major contradiction between the text and music.”

He replied

yes, and this was deliberate. The text says “I did not see a change in this world to show me the way so I would thank the world. We are the taken paths, we are broken hearts [means we are done, and we don’t matter]. Who cares about us? …” Segãh is used to lament more superficial issues such as the passage of life as in Mr. Shajarian’s songs. Here, it has the same lamenting and melancholic approach yet to a more universal, even ontological, issue. This is not my sorrow, or your sorrow. This is a much bigger issue. [Reflecting on the condition of life in today’s Iran] You have the Latin American form of dictatorship [in Iran] and you cannot drink your alcohol either. The press is also censored. The class difference is similar to the US, yet the public happiness is lower than Cambodia. Capitalism is like the US, respect and liberty zero.

As the conversation reveals, “Khat bekesh” is a very complex song on both musical and textual levels (Lyrics in Appendix). The song begins with an introductory section on the setar11 followed by a short avaz in the same dastgah. Dramatic and abrupt changes between Segãh and

D minor correspond to the text of the song alternating between highly poetic verses and a colloquial-sounding chorus. The first two verses describe the ruined life of the narrator/migrant and convey a sense of despair for a better future at home. The chorus repeats the line "dor-e

Irãno to khat bekesh, tof o lanat be in sarnevesht, khat bekesh” (Cross out Iran, cross it out (x2).

11 Setar is a four-stringed lute of the Tanbur family with a long neck and small body (During and Dick 2001).

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Damn this destiny, cross it out (x2)). Visually, the video images intensify the text showing a woman leaving with a suitcase and Namjoo wandering in the streets (reminiscent of Dariush's song “Parseh” (Wandering). If Iranian exiles of the 1980s felt alienated and wanted a return to the homeland, migrants of the 2000s felt a complete lack of hope for a return.

Released in 2012 (after the suppression of political riots of 2009 and while Iran's nuclear talks captured the headlines around the globe), “Khat bekesh” relates to a period of economic and political hardship in Iran’s global and domestic domains. It depicts a reflective approach to nostalgia, which instead of glorifying the homeland focuses on ruptures and transformations that change the migrants’ view on the home return. Having left Iran under troubling circumstances, most Iranian graduate students I interviewed expressed their despair about a better future for Iran and a lack of hope for a return. The relatability of the experience explains the popularity of this song. Just as the song musically exists in a hybrid space between the West and Iran, the Iranian migrant sits in the liminal space between the two locations.

Another noteworthy song depicting the transformation of nostalgic narratives in MM is

Ali Azimi’s extremely successful song, “Pishdaramad” (Prelude). Born and raised in Iran, where he formed the band Radio Tehran and released his first album 88 in 2009, Azimi is another significant figure of MM with a big fan base inside and outside the country. Upon his migration to the UK, Azimi released his first solo album, Mr. Mean in October 2013. The most successful song of the album, “Pishdaramad,” became so popular at home and in diaspora that, as Azimi maintains (2017), led to a neglect of his other songs. The song owes its vast popularity to two factors: the familiarity of the chorus melody borrowed from the song “Pishdaramad-e Isfahan” and a moving, nostalgic music video. Iranian filmmaker Arash Ashtiani created a very nostalgic image of Iran lived by the children of the revolution through setting the melody of

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“Pishdaramad-e Isfahan” (Isfahan Prelude)—composed by Reza Mahjoubi and arranged for piano by Javad Maroufi—to a collage of some of the most memorable scenes of the Iranian cinema.12 Having appeared in a number of movies including the Oscar-winning movie Jodãye-e

Nader Az Simin (A Separation), this song has gained special significance among young Iranian migrants in the world.

Musically, the bare texture in verses including piano, guitar, and voice is reminiscent of the Persian art music aesthetics of simplicity in texture and attracts attention to the words.13 The entrance of tonbak (Persian goblet-shaped drum) at the end of the first verse and dãiereh (Persian hand-held frame drum) in the chorus further evoke a sense of homeland. The use of the traditional Persian percussive instruments gives a strong Persian flavor to the song since they are almost always present in Persian folk and traditional music and have distinct roles as solo and accompaniment. The Western influence is evident in the vocal part, instrumentation, and sound effects. While verses and chorus have a light texture and an unembellished voice, the bridge breaks in with loud crashes on the drum kit, a guitar solo with the reverb effect, and hoarse vocal shouts similar to the soundscape of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd psychedelic rock of the 1980s.

In the coda section, Persian elements overlap with Western influences and embody the hybrid and transnational nature of both MM and the diasporic experience.

The song represents a credible image of Iran. Rather than embracing the positive aspects and rejecting the negative ones, “Pishdaramad” paints a realistic image in all musical, lyrical and visual elements (Lyrics in Appendix). The use of colloquial language and an intimate expression

12 It is important to note that during the 1980s until the late 1990s, instrumental music was the only permitted non- traditional music in Iran. Ma’roufi’s piano albums gained excessive popularity in Iranian households during this period due to their prevalent presence in state’s media and public spaces.

13 As Nettl (1972) observes, textures are mostly monophonic in Persian art music.

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of self, speaking to the emotions and life experiences of post-revolutionary Iranians, strengthen the aura of “authenticity” of the song and underscore its meaning. The maintenance and transformation of Persian musical elements in “Pishdaramad” work hand in hand with words and images to represent Iran as it is today, not frozen in the past. “Pishdaramad,” in short, owes its success to its aura of authenticity, sincerity, and reflective nostalgia. The familiar melody, plain vocals with no elaborated tahrir (glissando technique of Persian avaz), prominent role of tonbak and dãiereh juxtaposed with the rock influence in drums, guitar solo and harsh shouts, and accessible and non-poetic lyrical content, create an authentic representation of Iran. Authenticity is achieved on two levels. 1) the song rejects the mainstream, standardized sound of MLA and its aesthetics. 2) It constructs an intimidate relationship with the audience through colloquial language and a memorable melody.

These examples suggest that MM has not only shown a relative reluctance toward dominant narratives of homeland longing and belonging promulgated by MLA in the past decades but has taken a completely different approach to nostalgia. MM’s reflective approach to nostalgia (as in major hits by Farsad, Namjoo, and Azimi) depicts important transformations in the new generation of Iranian migrants’ relationship with the homeland and the host society. In addition, it voices new perceptions of diasporic identity in transnational spaces. Contrary to restorative nostalgia, which views the past as eternally uninterrupted, reflective nostalgia presents the rupture and irrevocability of the past (Boym 2001: 49). Instead of recreating the previous status and focusing on the recovery, reflective nostalgia values flexibility and the mediation of time and history.

Reflective nostalgia does not envision a reconstruction of the mythical place of home, it rather cherishes fragments of memory. Homecoming for MM musicians does not mean a

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recovery of the lost Iranian identity. Azimi, Namjoo, and Farsad look at home from a spatial and temporal distance and pay it a metaphorical revisit to reflect on self and their transnational existence. In contrast to restorative nostalgia, which utilizes two main plot types, reflective nostalgia avoids a single plot and presents a creative and ethical challenge by exploring various places and times and rejecting sentimental melancholia. Paying attention to historical incongruities and questioning the wholeness and continuity of restored traditions, those with a reflective view to nostalgia challenge restorative nostalgics’ attempts to recreate and revere a homeland frozen in the past. A modern nostalgic can be simultaneously homesick and sick of home.

Conclusion

Exploring the role of nostalgia in the cultural adjustment of immigrants in Yesterday's

Self (2002), Andreea Ritivoi depicts that sojourners’ adaptation into a new culture only happens when personal identity is perceived as a pursuit of continuity in the face of ruptures in one’s life story. Reflections on nostalgia uncovers one’s perception of self against difference and otherness. For Iranian migrants, nostalgia has served a crucial role in the construction of individual and collective identity against tribulations of displacement and alienation in the host society. Expressions on nostalgia in exilic arts have helped diasporic Iranians maintain connection to the past and the place of origin. The passage of time and a diverse set of transformations at home and in diaspora, however, have affected Iranians’ reflections on the homeland and their heritage. In contrast to the exiles of the 1980s who had vivid images of Iran’s glorious days right before they left the homeland, the migrants of the 2000s experienced a wide range of socio-political and economic hardships before leaving the homeland. For the second group, the homeland was not perceived as glorious as it was for the first group. With the exacerbation of conditions across economic and political domains, the hope for a better future

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and a desire for a home return have gradually declined. Today, while the homeland continues to function as a conceptual anchor for migrant identity, there has been a major shift in nostalgic approaches toward it.

As Mostofi observes, Iranian Americans struggle with an identity confusion rather than crisis. They know where they come from since they maintain ties with the homeland either through visits or nostalgia and memory (2003: 283). For them, nostalgia plays a key role in the maintenance of Iranian identity in diaspora. Restorative nostalgics struggle to recreate the homeland through memories and claims on places that they no longer inhabit (Mostofi 2003:

689) (as is the case for Iranian exiles of the 1980s who are nostalgic for a homeland that no longer exists). Reflective nostalgics, however, do not desire a home return. Rather, they reflect on the passage of time, the experience of displacement, what is lost and what is gained.

Criticizing both the fascination with novelty and the reinvention of tradition, modern nostalgics and displaced groups utilize nostalgia not only as an artistic force and tool to blend past and present but also as a survival strategy to deal with traumas of displacement and the infeasibility of home return (Boym 2001: 30).

According to Bohlman (2000), music plays a powerful role in the facilitation of both remembering and forgetting. As an effective means of activating, enacting, and embodying memory, music simultaneously allows us to enter into history and exit from it. In the case of diasporic communities, popular music reveals much about the construction of and engagement with history as well as negotiation of collective identity and memory (Auliffe 2010). Among displaced Iranians, popular music plays a fundamental role in complex processes of identity expression and (re)construction. MLA and MM provide us great insights on Iranian diasporic identity and the transformation of nostalgic narratives and homeland longing among Iranians in

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diaspora. Contrary to MLA’s vast repertoire of musical outputs attempting to revive the lost pride and keeping the hope for a home return alive, MM has offered an outlet to reflect on the experience of migration, upheavals at home, and liminality in transnational spaces.

To Nasrabadi, dominant narratives of hope for a home return in diasporic arts indicate the underlying hopes for not only a social but also a personal healing process (2011: 492). MLA’s saturation with hopeful narratives of return reveals the hope for remedying the wounds of leaving behind the familiar and being drowned in the tumultuous state of liminality. Highlighting the problematic binary of Iranianness and Americanness, majority of homeland-related MLA songs, particularly those of the 1980s, reveal Iranian migrants’ struggle over a dual feeling of rejection and alienation from both the homeland and the host country. Hopeful narratives of return aim to mitigate such agony no matter how metaphorical and imaginary. MM, on the other hand, takes a reflective approach on the past, the homeland, the present condition, and the desire for a home return.

Moreover, narratives of home return contest the legacies of assimilation and migration.

They aim to reject the idea that the migration process necessarily ends with integration/assimilation into the host country. Diasporic subjects use arts and culture to cling to the past, the origin, and the motherland while simultaneously creating and responding to new transnational identities somewhat detached from the past. As Mostofi highlights (2003: 686), although not all Iranians share a desire to return home, many continue to relate to their homeland and retain their ethnocommunal consciousness. Despite ethnoreligious, linguistic, and socio- political diversities, Iranians in Southern California have maintained solidarity through a collective remembrance of home and nostalgia. Not only reflecting but also shaping the diasporic

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consciousness, exile media (television, music, cinema) and popular culture have propagated a notion of Iranianness rooted in Iran of the past, memory, and nostalgia (1993).

For most Iranians now living abroad, the conditions for a home return are inappropriate.

For some, even the thought of return is unimaginable. Many have established roots and are unwilling to return. Second-generation immigrants may desire a visit to Iran but are too

Americanized to relocate (Mostofi 2003: 686). Through consumption and appreciation of pre-

Revolution Iranian pop music, second-generation Iranians in the US engage in an inherited nostalgia to claim cultural authenticity and fathom their identities (Maghbouleh 2010). For this cohort, pre-revolutionary and exilic Iranian popular music (MLA) functions as a discursive repertoire offering snippets of Iranian past and present culture.

Since the establishment of the MLA scene, Persian popular music has served as a key tool for the maintenance of ties between the diasporic subjects and the homeland. Through expressions of nostalgic longing, idealization of the homeland and heritage, and assurance of home return, MLA has strengthened collective identity and memory. Besides, expressions of sentiments of ghorbat, instability and alienation depict the existence of racial melancholia among

Iranian exiles. Dariush’s songs “Parseh” (Wandering) and “Be Bachehãmoon Chi Begim” (What to Tell Our Children) are great examples addressing the double loss of ideal citizenship in a foreign land and a coherent Iranian identity within the diaspora. As such, MLA has served a dual function in the negotiation of Iranian American identity. On the one hand, it has attempted to recover Iran and Iranianness vis-à-vis the American identity. On the other, it has publicly voiced the in-betweenness of exile, exclusion and uprootedness.

The emergent MM, however, has shown unwillingness toward addressing such double loss of citizenship and coherent Iranian identity, promoting nostalgic narratives of return and

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glorification of the homeland. Issues of ghorbat and alienation are much less frequently discussed in MM songs indicating a major transformation in Iranian migrant identity and its positioning within the larger host society. Being melancholic, reflective nostalgia is a form of grieving performed through pondering pain and having an eye to the future. Drifting away from a romanticized and restorative toward a reflective approach to nostalgia, MM, a counter- mainstream component of exilic Persian popular music, departs from MLA’s dominant narratives of restorative nostalgia. The few MM songs expressing nostalgia for the homeland depict more of a temporal longing than spatial one. Reflecting on the homeland, these MM narratives, as in the works of Farsad, Namjoo, and Azimi, uncover a desire to return to the past, a better time, childhood and young adult years, rather than a return to the physical locale of the home itself. Spatial and temporal longing in exilic Persian popular music’s nostalgic narratives cast light on the transformation of the Iranian American identity and diasporic experience.

The exploration of homeland narratives in four decades of Persian popular music in exile shows that longing might be collectively shared among humans, but that does not hinder telling varied stories of belonging and nonbelonging. Today, with the second largest influx of Iranian migrants, the Iranian diaspora is witnessing further diversification in different aspects. The multiplicity of narratives portrays that the Iranian migrant identity is shifting from dualism to transnationalism, encouraging the plurality of experiences and notions of Iranianness abroad. It is now time for academics to move away from notions of a unified Iranian “community” or

“diaspora” to “communities and cohorts” of Iranians.

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Figure 5-1. Image from “Hamkhooneh” by Hayedeh and Viguen captured from the video on YouTube.14

Figure 5-2. Image from “Parseh” by Darisuh captured from the video on YouTube.15

14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL9BzJEci6c.

15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMyrgEEFdog.

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Figure 5-3. Image from “Daram Miram Be Tehran” by Andy Madadian Ft. La Toya Jackson captured from the video on YouTube.16

Figure 5-4. Image from “Jãn-e Man” by Moein captured from the video on YouTube.17

16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da03QYt9hnM.

17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZWD_yr1CgE.

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Figure 5-5. Image from “Khat Bekesh” by Mohsen Namjoo captured from the video on YouTube.18

18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUy4x_ncsos.

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CHAPTER 6 EPILOGUE

Discussing the future of MLA, internationally renowned MLA star, Andy told me in a conversation at a bakery in Glendale

The development of music depends on people. People need to pay for the music. The money people pay for the music goes to the pockets of songwriters, lyricists, composers, guitarists, singers … a group of people are fed by this money. People steal the music. This might be offensive to some, but it is no different from stealing. I don’t know what is “intellectual property” in Farsi but when someone makes a song and people go online and download and listen to it for free nobody thinks of it as stealing. Nobody thinks that Andy has worked so hard and spent so much money to record this. We need to teach people to buy music…as a matter of fact, we can say musiqi-ye losanjelesi (MLA) no longer exists. It existed until 4 or 5 years ago [which to Andy was the time the Iranian regime lift the ban on popular music production, and new music scenes emerged in Iran], and it represented all Iranians not only in diaspora but also at home. Now, there are only 4 or 5 musicians who produce music. Since there is no record company to pay them to produce music, they need to cover the production costs themselves. Only 3, 4, or 5 artists have remained active in the scene, and they mostly work with the young generation of musicians in Iran, just like Paksima and I do (Andy Madadian, Personal Conversation, September 2019) (Figure 6-1).

I asked “why though? There are no young Iranian musicians here in LA? [I used the word bache-hã (kids) to refer to the young generation].” Andy responded

There is no bache-hã. The generation that grew up here has moved to Hollywood and is very successful there. They have done the right thing because the business is there. In the US, if you want to be successful you need to mingle with Americans. We, Iranians, have a limited business, and we are alone [he used the word gharib] and in exile here.1 Our business is getting smaller everyday because those who like our music are aging. They are less enthusiastic about [MLA] concerts and do not pay for the music. Besides, their children are American … only few stars who work hard like me have been able to adapt to Iran’s situation and work together, maintain our integrity despite all limitations, and have concerts around the world. Of course, we have less concerts, but we have kept our music alive.

1 See Chapter 5 for the discussion on ghorbat and gharib.

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Thrilled about his upcoming star on Hollywood Walk of Fame as the first Iranian artist

(Kampf 2019), Andy added

I think Iranians have become very happy and excited about this [his star]. But we need to inform Americans first, so they won’t ask who this is. Then we will inform Iranians. We expect thousands of people to attend the ceremony. It will be huge.

Although I met Andy in the final phase of my fieldwork research (September 2019), his input was highly enlightening about the transformation and future of MLA in relation to the host and home countries. Despite being married to an American singer, having worked with many

American and international stars, and having received multiple recognitions such as the

Armenian Legeneds of the World Award (Andy, Personal Conversation, 2019), Andy sees himself as an outsider; an immigrant artist whose Hollywood star needs justification for non-

Iranians. Unlike other MLA stars I attempted to contact for this research (including Dariush

Eghbali, Leila Forouhar, and Faramarz Aslani), Andy had an interest in the academic exploration of MLA. He seemed exteremly eager about his work after three decades of continued success and stardom. Sharing his concerns about financial aspects of the scene, Andy identified the disappearance of record companies in LA, US Iranians’ unwillingness to support MLA, and the rivalry of new musicians and musical styles in Iran and diaspora as key factors for the decline of the scene. Besides, to Andy, the next generation of Iranian-Americans is too American to produce or consume MLA.

What Andy fails to notice is the transformation of Iranians’ musical tastes impacted by

American/Western popular music and music produced in Iran and the Iranian diaspora. Music emanating from Iran, created with or without the government’s permit, has introduced new forms, sounds, and texts to Persian popular music. In diaspora, musicians creating alternative music (MM) have demonstrated their aesthetic agency by producing new styles and fresh sounds.

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Taking advantage of their transnational position/capital and their relative autonomy in production, MM has developed as a pluralistic and inclusive music scene embracing genres as diverse as hip hop, fusions of Persian art and folklore music, rock, blues, and jazz. The diversification of musical products and transformation of Iranians’ musical tastes have been fundamental factors in the decline of MLA. Failing to respond to such changes and to reflect young Iranian migrants’ experiences and issues of identity, MLA has gradually lost its position as the most popular and widespread branch of Persian popular music.

Exploring the Iranian-American identity, Mostofi (2003: 682) argues that through the process of immigration, Iranians in the US absorb, discard and incorporate certain elements from both Iranian and American culture. As a result, they formulate a dual identity which they navigate in different contexts. The Iranian-American identity is a unique mixture of American notions of liberty and freedom and Iranian cultural traditions and values. Iranian-Americans have successfully maintained an Iranian identity within the private domain while publicly embracing the American civic culture (ibid.). The investigation of Iranians’ musical activities and scene participations in the US, however, demonstrates that diaspora Iranians draw on multiple rather than two locations as sources for identity. In addition to being involved with the homeland and the country of settlement, transmigrants (including Iranians in diaspora) form complex transnational networks across all boundaries which brings them together based on shared origin, culture, and language.2 As a result of transnational and multipolar influences, new and pluralistic notions of collectivity, belonging, and nationness have emerged.

2 A great example for the transnational network of Iranians is Farsi Tweeter. Iranians all around world, using real names or pseudonym, discuss Iranian politics, popular culture, society, and viral happenings. Farsi Tweeter is a good place to see how Iranians are linked across all borders and reflect on their nationness.

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Examining the transformation of migrant identities in this ethnomusicological study of two distinct Persian popular music scenes (MLA and MM) in the US, I explore the relationship between diaspora Iranians’ engagement with the scenes and their conceptions of self, community, and homeland. I argue that music plays a complex role in both uniting the highly diverse community of Iranians across all differences and distances through the common background while simultaneously dividing the community on notions of taste, aesthetic value, and cultural capital. With the emergence of MM in diaspora, notions of nationness and homeland disseminated and promoted by MLA have lost their significance. The relative autonomy of MM and the aura of authenticity attributed to it (from the perspective of the scene members) have enabled it to express new notions of identity that take sociopolitical transformations and life realities into consideration. In contrast to MLA’s frozen representation of Iran as glorious and historically powerful, MM has depicted a more realistic image which no longer entices a home return.

Knowledge about diverse notions of nationness and collectivity among migrants challenges the monolithic readings of ethnic communities and their culture as bounded and static.

US-based Iranians have become the victim of such ethnic homogenization. They have faced hostility in the host society because of the actions of a groups of Iranians (and a certain ideology) at home. At home and within the global diaspora of Iranians, they have been stereotyped as affluent, materialistic, and royalist (indicating they are uneducated and outdated) since this has been the image promoted by Southern California Iranians and the exilic media. Through the use of exile media and music videos, Southern California Iranians have introduced a mainstream

Iranian identity and culture based on pre-Islamic, Persian traditions, Pahlavi regime mannerisms,

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and characteristics of the Iranian culture including language, the role of family, status, and occupation (Naficy 1993).

Promoting Pahlavi and American/Western values and boasting their wealth in the media exported to Iran gradually led to the negative image of US-based Iranians as Westernized, very affluent, arrogant, and superficial.3 Both in Iran and in diaspora, there is a popular negative interpretation of Southern California Iranians as “typical Iranians in Mercedes Benz, shopping on trendy and expensive Rodeo Drive” (Walinger and Bozorgmehr 1996: 351-367). This may seem exaggerated but spending some time with the community in its major gathering spots such as

Attar Bashi sandwich place and Akbar Mashti ice-cream store on Westwood boulevard, shopping at Persian grocery store Wholesome Choice in Irvine, attending shows in Cabaret

Tehran or concerts by pop stars reveal that such stereotypes are not totally inaccurate but are in no way inclusive of all Iranians in California and the US.

Exaggerated, static, and romanticized notions of Iranianness and Iran promoted by

Southern California exilic culture were challenged by the emergence of more transnational, fluid, and dynamic views on Iranianness in independent arts, including MM, in diaspora. Having lived in post-revolutionary Iran, the emergent MM musicians have rejected notions of homeland and nationness promoted by MLA. Creating music in the transnational space of diaspora, MM musicians draw on multiple sources for inspiration. They have spread new narratives of homeland which instead of idealizing the heritage and history are observant of socio-political ruptures that have shaped their experience of migration.

Following the introductory chapter and the historical discussion of Iranian migration in

Chapter 2, Chapter 3 examines each music scene, its participants, producers, and discourses.

3 The reality TV series “Shahs of Sunset” has been extremely influential in spreading such images of Iranians.

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Chapter 4 explores music scenes as significant sites for the expression and navigation of intracommunal differences and power struggles. Chapter 5 investigates the diaspora and homeland’s shifting relationships, and what such fluctuations reveal. Together, the three body chapters of this dissertation respond to Butler’s call for ethnographic examinations of diasporas according to diasporan research model instead of focusing on Safran’s model as an overused, abstract and theoretical paradigm which fails to offer in-depth insights on diasporic identities and experiences.

Considering the speedy transformation of both MLA and MM scenes in the face of socio- political changes at home, in the US, and in the global Iranian diaspora, the future of MLA and

MM remains an interesting area of academic inquiry from ethnomusicological, sociological, and anthropological perspectives. Some questions to follow include 1) how will MLA respond to competing musical styles as it is facing its demise? 2) what kind of transformations will take place in both MM and MLA scene in response to the music coming from Iran? 3) will MM lose its fan base and significance as intellectual music by losing contact with Iran over time? 4) which style/branch of Persian popular music will dominate the music market as the Iranian diaspora begins its fifth decade of exile?

Moreover, the second-generation Iranian-Americans’ engagement with Persian popular music is a significant area of study to help us better understand the experience of migration for future generations. Some research questions include: 1) how do second-generation Iranian-

Americans perceive MLA and MM? 2) which style do they relate to/consume if any and why? 3) what is this group’s response to the music emanating from Iran? 4) what image of ancestral homeland do the music from Iran, MLA, and MM give them?

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This ethnographic study of two prominent Persian popular music scenes (Musiqi-ye

Losanjelesi or MLA and Musiqi-ye Mostaghel or MM) in the US contributes to the broader research on Iranian-American/migrant identity by addressing the neglected and increasingly growing alternative scene of MM. It is my greatest hope that this dissertation is a step toward better understanding the complexity of the heterogeneous Iranian community and multifaceted issues of migrant identity in today’s United States. I hope my academic endeavors will lead to a better perception of not only Iranians, but all marginalized groups and minorities whose culture and arts play key roles in diversifying and further enriching the American society. Besides, we can expand boundaries of belonging, challenge limits of inclusion, reduce prejudice and promote equity and intercultural awareness in different sectors of the society by learning about migrants’ experiences.

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Figure 6-1. From right to left, Liam Pourreza, Andy Madadian, Shabnam Goli, and Alireza Pourreza.

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APPENDIX LYRICS

Lyrics of “Khoone-ye mã” English Farsi Chorus خونهٔ ما دوره دوره Our home is far way پشت کوه های صبوره Behind patient mountains پشت دشتای طالیی Behind golden fields پشت صحراهای خالی Behind empty deserts

خونه ماست اونور آب Our home is over the seas اونور موجای بیتاب Beyond the restless waves پشت جنگای سروه Behind oak forests توی رویاست، توی یه خواب It’s in a dream

پشت اقیانوس آبی Behind the blue ocean پشت باغ های گالبی Behind pear orchards اونور باغ های انگور Behind vineyards پشت کندوهای زنبور Behind bee hives

خونهٔ ما، پشت ابراس ت Our home is behind the clouds اونور دلتنگی ماست Behind our homesickness ته جادههای خیسه At the end of wet roads پشت بارون، پشت دریاست Behind the rain, behind the sea

خونهٔ ما، قصه داره Our home has stories آلبالو و پسته داره It has tart cherries and pistachios پشت خندههای گرمش ,and] behind its warm smiles] آدمای خسته داره There are the exhausted people

خونهٔ ما شادی داره Our home has joy توی حوضاش ماهی داره It has fish in its (mini) pools کوچههاش توپبازی داره Its alleys have ball games گربههای نازی داره And cute cats

خونهٔ ما، گرم و صمیم ی Our home, warm and friendly رو دیواراش عکسای قدیمی On its walls, old photos عکس بازی توی ایوون ,A photo of playing on the porch لب دریا تو تابستون playing] on the beach in the summer]

عکس اون روز زیر بارون A photo from that day under the rain با یه بغض و یه چمدون With tears and a suitcase رفتن از پیش آدمای نازنین و مهربون Leaving behind kind and caring people Chorus

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Lyrics of “Pishdaramad” English Farsi Verse 1

مشکلم بخت بد و تلخی ایام نیست My problem is not bad luck or the bitterness of these days مشکلم پوشوندن پینهی دستام نیست My problem is not covering my hands’ calluses مشکلم نون نیست آب نیست برق نیست My problem is not bread, nor water, nor electricity مشکلم شکستن ِ طلسم تنهاییست My problem is breaking the spell of loneliness

Verse 2 عاشقونهست یک روزی هم حل میشه It [my problem] is romantic and will be solved one day یا که از بارش زانوی من خم میشه Or my knees will bend under its weight

زنهار.. (Beware! (x2

Chorus که من باد میشم میرم تو موهات Cuz I will become the wind and run through your hair حرف میشم میرم تو گوشات Will become words and go into your ears فکر میشم میرم تو کله ت Will become thoughts and run into your head

من بنز میشم میرم زیر پات I will become a Benz for you to drive فقر میشم میرم تو جیبات Will become the poverty and slip into your pockets ُگرگ میشم میرم تو گله ت Will become a wolf and attack your cattle

هی.. Hey y y y

Bridge

صدتا طرفدار داری همه تو رو دوست دارن You have hundreds of fans, everyone loves you وذهن گرفتار داری And your mind is busy

دمتم گرم (Bravo (x4

Verse 2

نزدیک میشم دور میشم I get close, I get far بلکه مقبول در این راه پُر از استرس ووصلهی ناجور ,So that I get accepted in this stressful journey بشم so that] I become an ugly patch]

اینه قصهم اینه قصهم اینه قصهم (This is my story (x3

من برق میشم میرم تو چشمات I will become the light in your eyes اشک میشم میرم رو گونت Will become tears on your cheek زلف میشم میام رو شونت Will become hair on your shoulder

من باد میشم میرم تو موهات I will become the wind and run into your hair سیگار میشم میرم رو لبهات Will become a cigarette on your lips دود میشم میرم تو ریه ت Will become the smoke inside your lung

Verse 3

ای بخت سراغ من بیا که رخت خواب من با این خیال Oh luck, come to me cuz my bed won’t get warm with these خامم گرم نمیشه (useless illusions [an idiomatic expression implying “I’ll gain (x3 nothing out of these useless illusions”] (x3)

بی حساب اسرارمو I gave away my secrets without thinking

205

هی داد زدم هی داد زدم I shouted and shouted بی دلیل احساسمو I shouted my emotions without any reasons فریاد زدم فریاد زدم I shouted and shouted

حیف از این روزا که من به فاک زدم به فاک زدم (What a shame, I fucked up my days (x3

نزدیک میشم دور میشم I get close, I get far بلکه مقبول در این راه پُر از استرس و وصلهی ناجور ,So that I get accepted in this stressful journey بشم so that] I become an ugly patch]

اینه قصهم اینه قصهم (This is my story (x3

206

Lyrics of “Dore Irano Khat Bekesh” English Farsi Verse 1

ندیدم هیچ اشراق، اشراق و تحول ,I have not seen [received] any vision or development که دهدم پاسخ یا دهد تحمل ,to respond to or become more tolerant ندیدم هیچ اشراق، اشراق و تحول ,I have not seen [received] any vision or development که دهدم پاسخ تا کنم تشکر which gives me an answer so I would be thankful

ما که را ِه رفت هایم، باد است که می گذرد we are the taken routes, it is the wind that is passing ما که دل شکستهایم، یاد است که میحجرد we are broken-hearted, it is the memory that is ossified (x2)

Chorus (x2) دو ِر ایران ُ تو خط بکش، خط بکش، بابا خط بکش (cross out Iran [forget about it], cross it out (x2 تف ُ لعنت به این سرنوشت، سرنوشت، خط بکش spit on this destiny, destiny, cross it out

Verse 2 این مادر میهن بیوه شد، مشکل داشت This motherland is widowed, it has had issues شیر تفاخر هم مسموم بود، [The milk of our pride [referring to the essence of pride پشگل داشت was also poisoning and had manure صبر از پاچهام در رفت، عشق در دلم سَر رف ت Patience slipped through my pants, love overflew my heart, از او ِل هر صبح، حوصلهمون سَر رف ت ,We [I] got bored since early in the morning every day

اال هذا آوخ، چه کنم جانم رفت Oh alas, what shall I do, my soul and life is gone اال هذا آوخ، چه کنم جانم رفت [indicating his life is over]

Narration دست به هر جای جهان که کشیدیم Whatever we [I] touched in this world was slippery and سُر بود و باال رفتن مشک ل it was hard to climb. [referring to one’s self in plural هیچ بادامکی بر سفرهی ما نگذشت could be a sign of being humble or collectively sharing هیچ کار معلوم نشد [the experience No one left us an almond on the table, nothing got clear. به باد رفتیم بر هر چه که وزیده بود قبل از ما We got blown away by the winds that had passed وزیده بود بادِ فنا before us [perhaps referring to the political changes and the revolution]

دست به هر چیز زدیم، تکا ِن ضربات تن بو د Whatever we touched, shook our bodies. How many چند بار لرزیدیم؟ چند بار؟ ?times did we tremble? How many times چند بار گزش زنبور شد این کودکی را How many times did we become [get] the bee stinks in چند بار آخ گفتیم آنگونه که دل گریست ?the childhood How many times did we say “Ouch” in a way that our hearts cried out?

چرا شتر رنج همیشه اینجا خوابید ?Why did the camel of misery always sleep here چرا شتر رنج همیشه اینجا خوابید Persian proverb “Shotor Jãyee khãbidan” refers to the] چرا شتر رنج همیشه اینجا خوابید [inevitability of death and life hardships in general

دو ِر ایران ُ تو خط بکش، خط بکش، بابا خط بک ش (Chorus (x2 تف ُ لعنت به این سرنوشت، سرنوشت، خط بکش

207

Lyrics of “Jãn-e Man” English Farsi Chorus جان تو جان من حاکم وقربا ِن من، سفره ی ,Your life is my life, [you are] the meal of my banquet خان من طعم لبت نا ِن م ن the taste of your lip is my bread خوش بگو تا دَم از خوشه ی Share your sweet words so I can drink from your grape تو نوش کنم، شاه شیرین بیان very vague in Farsi too], you my sweet-speaking smiley] صورت خندان من queen

حکم به کشتار بده بنده و قربانی ام، از تو آزادم آن لحظه که Issue the order of my death, I die for you. You freed me زندانی ام .the minute you prisoned me I give you a kiss with my burning heart, I am زان به تو بوسه بر آه جگر سوز من، marked/renowned as crazy [for you] مهر دیوانگی طالعه پیشانی ا م ُ

عشق دیوانه زهر جانانه، از تو مینوشم و سرمست و سبک بال Crazy love, killing poison, I drink from you and I am من drunken and ecstatic. I sing a line of Persian poetry about بیت ویرانی شعر ایرانی، از تو میخوانم و شب نقطه ی بیدار منم devastation. I am sleepless

Chorus Bridge عطش روی تو دارم شب دیدار باش، نفس خفته ی بی عاطفه I am thirsty for your face, let it be the night of بیدار باش rendezvous. You the sleeping, emotionless breath, be هوس عطر تو هست و تب آغوش نیست، صحبت از موی تو awake [“nafas” translated to breath seems to mean هست و گوش تو گوش نیست beloved here]. I crave your scent but there is no warmth of embrace. I am taking about your hair, but you are not listening

ای دل ای عاشق موج بی قایق، میروی تا بزنی سر به کدامین Oh, my love-stricken heart, the boat-less wave, you are سنگ going to hit your head to which rock? [the idiomatic expression hitting one’s head to the rock in Farsi means ای دل ای تنها مست و بی پروا، بی سپر میبری ام سمت کدامین جنگ [facing the consequence of one’s actions Oh, my lonely heart, you the fearless drunken, to what battle are you taking me defenselessly?

Chorus

208

Lyrics of “Parseh” English Farsi Chorus

پرسه در خاک غریب پرسه ی بی انتهاست Wandering in a foreign land is an endless wandering هم گریز غربتم زادگاه من کجاست ?I have fled to the foreign land (ghorbat). Where is my birth place

Verse 1

تو شبای پرسه ی دلواپسی ,Wandering around at nights of uncertainty and anxiety که میخوام دنیام رو فریاد بزنم ,When I want to shout out my stories به کدوم لهجه ترانه سر بدم ?In which accent should I sing به کدوم زبون تورو داد بزنم ?In what language should I call your name گم گیج تلخ بی گذشته ام ,I am lost, bitter, and have no past توی شهری که پناه داده به من ,In a city that has given me protection از کدوم طرف میشه به هم رسید ?Which Path should we take to end up together همه کوچه ها به غربت میرسن .(All alleys end in ghorbat (estrangement, a foreign land تو کدوم پس کوچه اولین سالم ?In what alley, did the first hello fill the world with music گنبد سبزو پر از ترانه کرد In which neighborhood did the last farewell filled romantic ballads with تو کدوم محله واپسین ودا ?sorrow غزلهای عشق غمگنانه کرد ,Alleys, houses, neighborhoods کوچه ها خونه ها محلها Here is [like] a diary with no memories اینجا دفترچه های بی خاطره ست Chorus

برام از خاطره سنگری بساز ,Make me shelter out of memories بید بی ریشه رو شن باد میبره ,The rootless tree gets blown away with a wind نسل بی گذشته رو خاک غریب A generation with no history gets forgotten in a foreign land, just like an مثل شخم کهنه از یاد میبره old plow میخوام از باغچه سبزاین روزا ,I want to fill my basket of memories with the green garden of today سبد خاطرهامو پر کنم I want to fill my old days with the smell of new flowers میخوام از عطر دوباره گل شدن ,Alleys, houses, neighborhoods شهر سالخوردگیامو پر کنم Here is [like] a diary with no memories کوچه ها خونه ها محلها اینجا دفتر چه های بی خاطره ست)Chorus )2

209

Lyrics of “Hamkhooneh” English Farsi A

از من نپرس خونم کجاست تو اون همه ویرونه ,Don’t ask me where my house is amid these ruins ای هم قبیله چی بگم؟ قبیله سرگردونه Fellow tribesmen what can I say? The tribe is displaced/lost ما دربدرتر از همیم همخونهء بی خونه We are all homeless my housemate, ghorbat (the غربت ما دیار ماست: خونینترین ویرونه .foreign land) is our homeland, the bloodiest ruins

دربدری کار تو بود، اما نصیب ماشد Homelessness was your job, [ambiguous reference] but کودک نازادهء ما با دست ما چه ها شد .it became ours از من نپرس درد دلم، شکسته سنگ صبور .Look what has happened to our unborn children خاطره ها ویرونه هاست، قصه ها زنده بگور Don’t ask me about my heartache, my patience is Memories are destroyed, stories are buried alive

چه آرزوهایی که نمرد، چه سینه هایی که نسوخت So many lost dreams, so many burnt hearts کسی دیگه تو اون دیار رخت عروسی ندوخت ,No one sewed a wedding dress in that land any more Believe me my fellow singer, the flying wings are not باور کن ای هم آواز، نشکسته بال پرواز broken با هم بیا بسازیم اون خونه رو از آغاز Let’s build that house from scratch

A C A Coda غربت از اون خاک پاک، مارو جدا نکرده The foreign land has not separated us from that قبیلهء سرگردون به خونه بر میگرده .clean/pure land, the wandering tribe will return home به خونه برمیگرده

210

Lyrics of “Daram Miram Be Tehran” English Farsi Chorus

ای بهار ای آسمون عیده میرم به خونمون Oh spring, oh sky, it is the Norooz time (Eid) [and] I داد میزنم ای جان ای جان ای جان .am going home دارم میرم به تهران دارم میرم به تهران I yell, oh dear, oh dear, I am going to Tehran, I am دارم میرم به تهران دارم میرم به تهران .going to Tehran

Verse 1

نازه من بهار میاد گل به سبزه زار میاد My beauty, the spring is coming, flowers are blooming در اومد جوونه ها دلم پر از بهونه ها in the meadows بعد از اون جدایی ها عشق به من گفت که بیا Blossoms are here and my heart is full of passion عشق به من گفت که بیا (After all the separation, love is calling me to go. (x2

Chorus

Verse 2

به هوای یار میرم وای که چه بی قرار میرم I am going for my love and I am going restlessly بخدا عاشقم به عشق اون دیار میرم I swear to God I am in love, and I am going for the واسه بوی کوچمون تنگه دلم تنگه دلم .love of that land واسه ی محلمون تنگه دلم تنگه دلم .I miss our alley; I miss our neighborhood

Chorus

Verse 3

میدونم از پنجره چقدر قشنگه منظره I see through the window how beautiful is the scenery دوباره زنده میشه برام هزار تا خاطره ,Thousands of memories come back to me من و یار مست بهار دست تو دست تو کوچه ها My love and I drunk with spring, holding hands in یاد اون روزا بخیر که یادشون قشنگتره ,alleys Oh, good old days, memories are more beautiful

Chorus

211

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Shabnam Goli earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature from

Khayyam University of Mashhad, Iran in 2008. In 2014, Shabnam completed her Master of

Music in ethnomusicology at the University of Florida with a thesis on expressions of socio- cultural and political resistance in Iran underground rock music scene. She received her PhD in

Music with an emphasis on ethnomusicology in 2019.

She has presented her research in many national and international conferences including the annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology in 2016 and regional chapters in Florida,

Tennessee, and California in 2014, 2015 and 2019 respectively. Shabnam has received multiple recognitions for her academic endevours including Dale Olsen Award from the Southeast and

Caribbean Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology and Outstanding International Student

Award from the University of Florida in 2014 and 2015. As a new drummer, Shabnam continues to expand her musicianship and musical collaborations with local musicians in Northern

California.

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