Spotify: Mic Check Features Iranian Rapper CHAII

Music can transcend cultures and speak to people on a deeply personal level. Imagine a rap star in a traditional culture like Iran? 

Spotify has just released the newest episode of its original podcast series, “Spotify: Mic Check,” - a series aimed at connecting fans with the world’s biggest creators from around the globe through exclusively intimate conversations. 

 This week’s episode features Iranian rapper CHAII, whose rebellious rhymes are captivating ears across the Persian diaspora. 

You can listen to the full episode here.

Inspired by the rhymes of Eminem, which helped her learn English, CHAII sat down with Mic Check to discuss the release of her Pineapple Pizza EP, breaking barriers in her Persian culture, seeing her music featured in Shonda Rhimes’ “Inventing Anna” and a recent feature in Spotify’s RADAR program, a global emerging artist program representing Spotify’s commitment to supporting artists across all genres and stages of their development.

  

Available to stream for free exclusively on Spotify, please see below for interview highlights in the episode: 

 

• CHAII on how music and dancing influenced her upbringing
• “So I grew up in Iran and music and dancing, and all that good partying is such a big part of my culture. So most of my memory of the first eight years in Iran of my life was my uncles playing traditional music to techno and moew, I'd always be the one everyone would tell to get up and dance and I can't dance to save my life now.”

 

• CHAII on how Eminem's music helped her learn English and discover her passion for Rap music
• “The first thing I saw on TV when I moved was The Real Slim Shady had just dropped and I was like, Whoa, what is this? This is crazy. So that sparked something in me like, I want to write rhymes… It’s semi a joke that I learned English from Eminem but really, it was just through writing my own rhymes and rapping along to the songs that I kind of got better at speaking English, and so in that sense, it's kind of burned to my brain.”

 

• CHAII on her music being received by the Persian diaspora despite the conservative culture in Iran
• “For me, personally, being a female rapper, Iranian female rapper - it hasn't felt rebellious or scary because I don't live in Iran. So in a sense, I kind of feel that, I just feel really lucky that I'm an artist and all the stuff I do outside of Iran.”

 

• CHAII on creating her recent Pineapple Pizza EP
• “So creating a Pineapple Pizza EP was actually quite a different project for me because I wanted to get quite collaborative. It was a moment where I was like, I've been working on a lot of music by myself, and I've been producing Oussama myself or Frank is my partner, and I was just like, Well, it's just like  with these writers, let's just jam. Let's go back to how it was at the cyphers,  when you get people in a room and just have fun.”

 

• CHAII on having her music featured in Netflix’s “Inventing Anna” and “The Old Guard”
• “It's crazy to say that my music's on two massive Netflix shows. So The Old Guard and Inventing Anna, I'm a massive fan of the actual movie in the series, so it just sometimes feels so surreal. When you're watching back, you’re like what? And I couldn't even watch the scene when my song came on, and I was just like looking at it in shock and being like, Oh my God, and I had to rewind and go back.”

 

• CHAII on being a part of the Spotify RADAR program
• “Being part of the Spotify Radar program has been super amazing in a sense that, it's Spotify, it's like Spotify is huge, you know, to get their love and support and be like, these are the artists who we are picking for our RADAR program. It makes me just want to step up my game and just keep delivering. So it feels really awesome, and we're just like, let's have fun, let's  break the boundaries, and you have the support of this massive platform.”