When rapper Toomaj Salehi was imprisoned in 2021 for criticising Iran’s hardline Islamic regime in his lyrics, he came out fighting, recording a video for a blistering new track just outside the central prison of Esfahan, where he’d been detained for eight days.
Set against a foreboding synth intro layered with samples of distant screams and the sound of advancing shock troops, ‘Bazmandeh’ (Survivor) rang like a battle cry: ‘Give it to me, Iran is mine,’ he demanded. ‘It’s completely destroyed. I will build it myself.’
