‘I did it for the people,’ says Farbod Mehr, of song drawing lyrics from the work of revolutionary 20th-century poet Aref Qazvini
A stirring song – sung, apparently, by a young woman, with lyrics expressing the hope that sacrifice will lead to a better future – has become a soundtrack for Iranians in the first part of 2026, as the country experienced the brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests and then the US-Israeli air assault, now in its third week.
However, the singer, called Nava, is a product of artificial intelligence, created by a London-based artist of Iranian origin, Farbod Mehr.
Nava cannot be arrested, unlike the Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour, who was jailed after his song Baraye became the unofficial anthem for the 2022 protest movement.
The character represented Iranian women, who cannot sing in public, Mehr said. “I did it for the people, and I loved how they reacted to it,” he said.
