FARIMAN

Fariman was born in 1985 in Tehran and grew up in the heart of the city. As a boy he fell for music that came from far away: Michael Jackson, The Beatles, the Bee Gees, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton. He was playing along to their melodies long before he wrote his own.

In a country that had banned foreign music after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, leaving the stage to traditional sounds only, that love of Western pop and rock set him on an unusual path. He would become one of the first to bring new genres of music to Iran.

No music school, no teacher. In the early 2000s Fariman taught himself by listening closely to the singers he admired, studying every note and every vocal line. At 17 he learned piano and guitar. At 20 he was performing as a solo singer.

From then on he did it all himself: writing the lyrics, composing the music and producing the sound. A complete, 360-degree musician who can take a song from an empty page to a finished track.

By 2009 he was known as the first Iranian singing fluently in English. While most Iranian singers of his generation stayed with Persian lyrics and Eastern musical roots, Fariman’s songs and videos looked and sounded like the Western pop world.

He became the first singer based in Iran to perform in both English and Persian, and to release high-quality videos with special effects never seen in Iran before.

On January 25, 2010, he released his first single, “They Won’t Understand”. Six months later came the short-film music video, with professional make-up artists, imported costumes and a level of production Iranian music had not seen at the time.

Broadcast across Iranian channels, especially PMC and GEM TV, the video went viral and passed 40 million views. On August 25, 2011, he followed it with “Stay with Me”, featuring the well-known Iranian R&B singer Amir Tataloo.

In 2011 Fariman was invited to perform live alongside several Iranian singers. One minute into his first song in English, security forces raided the venue and shut the show down.

That minute shaped the next decade. For more than ten years he tried to get an official concert permit and never received one. Project after project was cancelled without approval from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and he went through a period of severe depression.

He kept making music anyway, releasing song after song for his fans on Instagram and on his website. With YouTube restricted in Iran, many fans used VPNs just to hear him.

In July 2022 he released “Rise from the Fall”, a single with the legendary Italian singer Al Bano. It became a success in both Iran and Italy.

Written about life after Covid-19 and the values that hold people together, the song is a reminder of how strong the human spirit can be. It arrived while the world was still recovering from the pandemic, with a simple message: there is hope, and we are in this together.

Persian and Italian music meet in one sound, and two very different voices fit together naturally. Two artists, two nations and one song, proof of how music brings people from different cultures together.

On June 8, 2024, after months of preparation, Fariman was set to play a concert in Tehran. Five hours before the show, the Tehran police called him directly and threatened him, forcing him to announce on social media that the concert was cancelled because of “technical issues.”

He cancelled in public. In private, he and his team made a braver choice: they played the entire concert behind closed doors, with no audience, and filmed every minute. The full show was later released on YouTube and Instagram for his fans.

Then came the decision that changed everything: Fariman left Iran. What could have been an ending became his breakthrough. Now free to create without asking anyone’s permission, he is building his career in Europe, with music about freedom, hope and new beginnings.

In 2025 Fariman was selected as a jury member of the Italian AmiCorti International Film Festival, judging the music video section in Roccaraso and in Prague.

For an artist whose own music videos once changed what seemed possible in Iran, it was a new role: helping choose the best work of other artists on an international stage.

His latest song, “The Light of Hope”, tells the story of Iran, and it has received wide attention and deep appreciation in Iran.

What comes next: more international collaborations, across Europe and beyond.