User talk:Hassankhademi

Rapping in Tehran
Rapping in Tehran (2009) is a documentary film, directed by Hassan Khademi. If there is any music style in the world to which the term ‘underground’ can be justifiably applied, it is rap in puritanical Iran. Since the beginning of the 1990s, practically every kind of pop music has been forbidden in the Islamic Republic, but the state security forces crack down particularly hard on rappers. Their outfits, modeled on Western idols, their lyrics about identity conflicts and sexual deprivation or the fact that young women sing about themselves and their problems are reason enough to keep raiding the few studios in town and closing down the websites of the most famous singers and bands. The only consequence is that every closed down site spawns four new ones, the studios that are closed in one place re-open somewhere else and become more attractive to the scene. “Rapping in Tehran” is about young people’s tough struggle against the rigid rules of a government of old men whose resistance in the long run will be in vain. For the music keeps spreading: via the Internet, through exiled rappers who broadcast their lyrics into the country from Dubai, via mobile phones or secret parties. In any case, the courage with which they insist on the right to lead their own lives is cause for admiration. MH (DOK Leipzig)

A report from the front of Iranian rap's struggle for survival How many Iranian rappers can you remove in one single day, if you are convinced that hip hop should be forbidden? Close to a hundred, if you are as efficient as the Iranian police - but in a country where youth is irreversibly taking over the country, the result is simply that hundreds of new rappers are seeking out the illegal studios in Tehran to try their hand at the difficult and controversial art of Persian rap. 'Rapping in Tehran' follows the dangerous cat-and-mouse play and gives us a unique, kaleidoscopic look at the underground culture that is Iranian hip hop - underground despite the fact that several million young Iranians are listening to the music today. The authorities are upholding their ban and rappers are continuing to organize illegal concerts, from which the film gets its unforgettable, life-affirming images of young girls in headscarves and heavy makeup dancing away to the heavy beats of the music. 'Rapping in Tehran' is a unique contemporary document - and news from the front of a musical youth rebellion. (CPH:DOX)

Hassan Khademi’s film ‘Rapping in Tehran’ offers a unique view at the underground culture of Iranian hip hop music. Although millions of young Iranians listen to rap music today this genre is still strictly forbidden in the country. Visiting illegal concerts, the camera records unforgettable scenes of young Iranians dancing to the heavy beat of that music, thus expressing their rebellion against oppression. (ZagrebDox)