Rap and K-pop aren’t music genres you’d expect an Iranian presidential hopeful to be familiar with. And yet, during the second televised debate ahead of the countrywide poll on 18 June, one of the candidates displayed an impressive knowledge of the contemporary musical landscape.
“They play rap on their own programmes, but they have banned rap. Our teens have moved on to K-pop or Korean pop. Our own rap [music] is still underground,” said centrist Abdolnaser Hemmati, the former governor of the Central Bank of Iran.
Hemmati’s comment seemed to be directed at the hardline frontrunner, the chief of the judiciary Ebrahim Raisi, who lost the 2017 election to incumbent Hassan
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