Diaspora Comes Home

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Diaspora Comes Home
Diaspora Comes Home

A round-up of the cosmopolitan classical musical culture in Iran. Starting with music scholars of the Qajar era (1796–1925) and ending with the global music scene of the 21st century, from both the diaspora and from home.

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Design: Maria Uthe
Photo: Dastgam Association
Sound: Aftab Darvishi, Mahsa Vahdat, Ali-Naqi Vaziri

One Way Passage to Tehran

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One Way Passage to Tehran
One Way Passage to Tehran

The audiovisual artist Shaahin Peymani and his family share a long history of migration from Iran to Germany and back. Here he maps the route from his German grandmother’s migration diary alongside one of his own compositions.

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Design: Maria Uthe

Making Persian Music More Accessible to Outsiders

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Making Persian Music More Accessible to Outsiders
Making Persian Music More Accessible to Outsiders

The audiovisual artist Shaahin Peymani and his family share a long history of migration from Iran to Germany and back. Here he maps the route from his German grandmother’s migration diary alongside one of his own compositions.

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Design: Maria Uthe

Dard I Door

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Dard I Door
Dard I Door

A poetic encounter with the different family histories of poet Tanasgol Sabbah and bassist Reza Askari. Weaving together experience, memory, and narrative, this piece switches between languages, and allows uncertainty about what is said and what is imagined.

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Design: Maria Uthe
Photo: Reza Askari

Blinde Passagiere

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Blinde Passagiere
Blinde Passagiere

Die Klarinettistin Shabnam Parvaresh beschreibt die Musik ihrer Kindheit und Jugend. Die Erinnerungen an ihr Elternhaus verbinden sich mit geliebten Tonträgern und endlosen Downloads. Was sie als Musikerin noch im Gepäck hatte, entdeckte sie aber erst in Deutschland.

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Design: Maria Uthe
Photo: Sheen Trio, Shabnam Parvaresh
Sound: Sheen Trio, Shabnam Parvaresh

NairobiConscious: Through the Airwaves

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NairobiConscious: Through the Airwaves
NairobiConscious: Through the Airwaves

Kamwangi Njue traces the story of political (i.e. conscious) music in Kenya, drawing on his own biography. He asks: Can conscious music achieve the impact it seeks when it has to play in the same sphere as popular music made purely for entertainment?

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Design: dudusquad
Sound: KBC Radio news bulletin, 1998

Nairobi Surround

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Nairobi Surround
Nairobi Surround

Different artists from Nairobi share their experiences of life in the city during the tumultuous election season of early 2022, and their thoughts on political and social messages in music.

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Design: dudusquad

Chapatis at Hip Hop City

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Chapatis at Hip Hop City
Chapatis at Hip Hop City

Juliani, a self-confessed «musician with a mission», runs a community center in the heart of Nairobi’s poorest district, building on the legacy of conscious rap that began in this part of the city.

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Design: dudusquad
Photo: Falkue (Wikipedia)
Sound: Recording from a DHC event

A Brief History of Kenyan Conscious Music

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A Brief History of Kenyan Conscious Music
A Brief History of Kenyan Conscious Music

Kenyan hip hop has gone through several phases. This mixtape tries as much as possible to identify them through their unifying act of Sheng poetics. These tracks observe, report, criticize, accuse, and protest. Together, they paint a conscious picture of Nairobi.

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Design: dudusquad

Gengepress

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Gengepress
Gengepress

Nairobi-based artists Kamwangi Njue (7Headc0) and Raphael Kariuki (DJ Raph) remixed conversations between seven Nairobi musicians and Norient’s Thomas Burkhalter, resulting in this compilation album.

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Design: dudusquad

A City on My Mind

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A City on My Mind
A City on My Mind

Don’t believe the hype. Despite its reputation as a global city, Nairobi is a mostly chaotic, starkly unequal place, with the majority struggling to get by. Emma Nzioka’s photography captures this inequality, accentuated by musical selections by Kamwangi Njue.

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Design: dudusquad