'You cannot prohibit art': Iranian musician Mehdi Rajabian on releasing an album that could put him in prison

Mehdi Rajabian could be arrested at any moment — it's a dangerous thing to be a musician in Iran. In 2014, Rajabian was imprisoned for six years for making music about human rights and Iran's history, as well as using his record label to release music by women.

Human rights groups protested Rajabian's sentence and after two years in prison he was released on bail. He's been banned from making music, but this hasn't stopped him from releasing a new album called Middle Eastern, which features other musicians from the region, many of whom make music that defies the regimes they live under.

In order to protect Rajabian's safety, we couldn't call him or get him into a studio, so instead we sent him questions that he sent back to us with the audio of his answers. We translated his responses into English. You can read the transcript below.

On releasing this album and putting himself at risk

The truth is that being inside and outside of prison are no different for me because in both instances I am being choked by the state. In terms of having my music banned, I don't think music can actually be banned because the first idea for this album was written when I was in jail, so this shows that you cannot prohibit music. This shows that you cannot prohibit art. Even if you put the creator of that art in prison. 

Anyway, I think at this time the hope for music, which is a common language among all countries, should be to make a plea for human rights because the Middle East is facing its toughest time ever, and as a musician, I feel an obligation to use my music as a tool for human rights. The saddest thing is that for the most basic of rights you have to produce a piece of work with the language of art that speaks of oppression.

On why he thinks the Iranian government is so fearful of music and the arts

In my opinion, dictatorships are afraid of knowledge and enlightenment. If this knowledge comes through music, well, then it's more able to penetrate society and spread its message. If you read the history of dissident musicians, avant-garde musicians have always been under threat from the state because they never stood for the state and were always in opposition to it, and were always fighting for knowledge and philosophy and music.

I have experienced jail and even solitary confinement and a hunger strike, and this may be hard to believe, but when I was on a hunger strike in prison, I had a cell mate who was a human rights activist and he also went on a hunger strike, but for his own issues. This fellow cell mate and fellow hunger striker and friend in the next round of hunger strikes lost his life and this could have happened to me too. So here the root of the word "banned musician" becomes a joke because I wasn't banned. When you are mobilizing and fighting you can experience so many different things. It's you who decides how much of an impact you want to have. 

On the new album, Middle Eastern

The world has evolved in terms of emotion and technique, and now only art that's a work of wonder, and that has an original thought and philosophy, can astonish the audience. Because I feel like humanity these days is really spell-bound by the strange things that are happening. Perhaps even more striking is that people in Iran and the Middle East are seeing real-life death sentences being carried out in the streets. What sequence can a filmmaker make to communicate this level of sadness and grief? Or even with music. We heard the cries and notes of an asylum seeker at the borders of the world. What melody can I make as a musician that can carry this much grief and sadness within it? 

So the world has evolved in terms of emotion and even technique. And an art without message and philosophy cannot find a place. In my Middle Eastern album I have to say we were trying to follow different messages and philosophies. We arrived at two words in the album. These two words are 'no' and 'why.' Because in the Middle East, everything always ends with those two words. All the pieces in the album contain a story — from the first track to the last, which also ends the story. 

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. To hear the full segment, download our podcast or click 'Listen' near the top of this page.

— Produced by ​Ben Edwards