World-renowned band Coldplay played “Baraye”, the Iranian protest song, together with guest singer Golshifteh Farahani, in a huge concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“We are gonna sing a song that right now is being sung by many people in Iran and many of the Persian diaspora people who left Iran after the revolution,” said Chris Martin, the vocalist of Coldplay, during the concert.
Martin welcomed exiled Iranian activist and actress Golshifteh Farahani onto the stage to lead the vocals, sang in Persian. “Baraye” has become the anthem song for protesters in Iran, in the country’s anti-government uprisings continuing since 16 September 2022.
The original song by Shervin Hajipour was screened with English subtitles during the concert, reported Euronews. Hajipour was arrested on 29 September in the Iranian capital Tehran, two days after he published the song on his Instagram page. By that time the song had already reached 40 million views. On 4 October, he was released on bail.
Hajipour’s lyrics sang to the heart of the movement rapidly accelerating on the streets of Iran over the past six weeks, sparked after Jîna (Mahsa) Amini was killed in custody for not complying with the Republic’s strict Islamic dress code. The song ends with the words “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi”, the Persian translation of the Kurdish slogan, “Jin, Jîyan, Azadî” (Woman, Life Freedom), that has also become emblematic of the protests.
After a campaign on social media platform TikTok urged users to nominate the song for the Grammy’s, “Baraye” received nearly 100,000 submissions for the newest category, ‘Song For Social Change’.
Ane Brun, a famous Norwegian musician, also shared a video of herself singing “Baraye” on Twitter, commenting, “Woman, Life, Freedom”.
❤️ to my Iranian Friends.
“Baraye Azadi”
For Freedom.
Woman. Life. Freedom. #mashaamini#iranprotests #shervinhajipour#WomanLifeFreedom pic.twitter.com/bV9NWq3fIf— Ane Brun (@anebrun) November 2, 2022
The “Jin, Jîyan, Azadî” slogan was originally inspired by Kurdish women and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) founding leader Abdullah Öcalan, and has now become a slogan both in support of the movement in Iran, and internationally, for the global fight towards equality and freedom.
