Shahin Najafi

Shahin Najafi ( Persian شاهین نجفی Shahin Najafi , DMG Šāhīn Naǧafī ; * September 10, 1980 in Bandar-e Anzali , Iran ) is an Iranian singer , songwriter , rapper and guitarist living in Germany.

Life

Najafi was born in Bandar-e Anzali in the Iranian province of Gilan in 1980 . He says of himself that as a youth he was pious and went to the mosque regularly; but today he has "nothing to do with religions [...], they want to control you". He studied sociology at the university, but did not receive a degree. While he initially worked as a poet in Iran, he also took lessons in classical and flamenco guitar. He also started working with various underground music groups in Iran. After he had been sentenced to three years in prison and 100 lashes for a song text for refusing to remove his political messages from his music, he emigrated to Germany in 2005. Here he performed with the group Tapesh in 2012 . He left the group in early 2009.

The song “The Power Of Students in Iran” deals with the harassment of protesting students, while “We are not Men” can be seen as a contribution to the support of the women's rights movement, especially the “one million signatures” campaign in Iran.

On May 7, 2012, Najafi and Majid Kazemi published the song Naghi , which contains numerous references to the tenth Imam ʿAlī al-Hādī an-Naqī . He may have received inspiration for this from the satirical Facebook group “Campaign to Remember Imam Naghi by the Shiites”, which has existed since May 11, 2011. The song implores Imam Naghi to "return" and addresses a wide range of Iranian social, political and economic evils, including economic sanctions, corruption, political oppression, beauty and sex mania, and the impotence of the intelligentsia and opposition abroad. The cover shows a female breast resembling a dome (and thus an Islamic saint's grave) with a rainbow flag of the lesbian and gay movement on the tip of the nipple, which is flown around by birds of prey. The song made the Facebook group better known. At the end of May, the father of an Iranian studying in Holland was arrested as leverage. The false assumption was that the student knew the group's operators because he had posted a lot there.

Death fatwa

According to a report by the Iranian news agency Fars on May 9, 2012, Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Lotfollah Safi Golpayegani (* 1919) recognized blasphemy in the song and an insult to the tenth imam and issued a death fatwa against Najafi. There is also an internet campaign about it. According to the BBC's Persian-language service , however, the fatwa was issued two weeks before the song was released, without naming Shahin Najafi.

Najafi himself also said in an interview with the taz that this call for murder was actually "undated" and not directed at him personally. In the meantime, however, "groups from the regime's environment" have specified that a bounty has even been placed on him. The musician protests against being labeled an “Iranian Eminem” in the German media. He also performed with rappers, but musically not tied to this genre of music. As a satirist who enjoys provocation against lack of freedom of thought, he sees himself as a “social critic” of Iran, but not a member of any political group.

The Islamic scholar Mathias Rohe called his situation threatening. A formal fatwa is not necessary to mobilize fanatics, nor does a formal fatwa automatically have a higher weight: “Fatwas do not have a binding effect; they live solely on the authority of the expert. ”According to the time , the artist in hiding is in the care of Günter Wallraff . He called for solidarity: Shahin is not as famous as Salman Rushdie , who has been threatened with death in a fatwa since 1989. “I took in Rushdie at the time. I now wish that we can organize broad solidarity with Shahin. I call on the artists and musicians of this country to help him. ”On June 15, 2012, over 50 artists and writers published an appeal for solidarity for Shahin Najafi initiated by the Cologne composer Manos Tsangaris and the Berlin Academy of Artists, including Günter Wallraff , Klaus Staeck , Uwe Timm , Elfriede Jelinek , Navid Kermani , Günter Grass , Doris Dörrie , Jan Josef Liefers , Nike Wagner , Andreas Dresen , Hans W. Geißendörfer , Johano Strasser as well as the singers Udo Lindenberg , Hannes Wader , Konstantin Wecker , Marius Müller- Westernhagen and Campino .

In 2017, under the pressure of the fatwa, the documentary When God Sleeps by German-American director Till Schauder was made about Najafi's life . The hour and a half film premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival .

Discography

With tapesh

• Ma mard nistim ( We are not men , 2012)

Solo albums

• Illusion (2010 pamas publishing house)
• Sale Khoon ( blood year , 2010)
• Hich, Hich, Hich ( Nothing Nothing Nothing , 2012)
• Tramadol (2013)
• 1414 (2014)
• Sade (2015)
• Radical (2017)
• Meta Phrygian (2017)
• Jens Sevom (2019)
• The Sacred and the Violence (2019)

Web links

• Artist's website
• Iran: From Germany, Rap Group Challenges Male-Dominated Society
• Death decree against the Iranian rapper Shahin Najafi: "I will continue my work" Qantara.de
• Declaration of solidarity from over 50 artists for Shahin Najafi
• Report, Pro Medienmagazin 5/2013, pp. 38–39 (PDF; 24.7 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Breathe the air in Iran again, that's my dream. In: chrismon . February 2014, pp. 42–43.
2. ↑ Bild (newspaper) , January 13, 2018.
3. ↑ One price for all sounds About the Dortmund “Creole” music award for world music, taz, May 22, 2007
4. ↑ آهنگی از نقویِ مجاهد ، شاهین نجفی (with lyrics), imamnaghi.wordpress.com, May 9, 2012.
5. ↑ Shahin Najafi & Majid Kazemi - Naghi , youtube.com, uploaded on May 7, 2012
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Shahin Najafi's “Salman Rushdi” moment? , Iranpolitik.com, May 9, 2012.
7. ↑ کمپین یادآوری امام نقی به شیعیان , facebook.com.
8. ↑ Ashley Fantz, Banafsheh Keynoush, Jennifer Deaton: Son: Iranian dad arrested for my Facebook posts , cnn.com, July 15, 2012.
9. ↑ death decree against Iranian rapper in Germany , DiePresse.com, May 9, 2012 Design.
10. ↑ شاهین نجفی: قصد توهین به امامان شیعه را نداشته‌ام , BBC Persian on May 10, 2012.
11. ↑ ^{a b} "I no longer have a normal life" Death threats against Iranian musicians , taz from May 12, 2012, accessed May 13, 2012.
12. ↑ Fatwa against musician Najafi "It is good for him to receive encouragement" , Spiegel Online from May 15, 2012.
13. ^ Press release Akademie der Künste , Solidarity for Sahin Najafi. Artists and politicians support rappers. Taz 16./17. June 2012.
14. ^ Cara Cusumano: Tribeca Film Festival Documentary Competition: When God Sleeps. Retrieved November 7, 2017 . 
15. ↑ archivenajafi: دانلود آلبوم مقدس و خشونت شاهین نجفی | Shahin Najafi The Sacred And The Violence Download. In: Archive Najafi. July 8, 2019, accessed March 29, 2020 .