There is a curious moment in Iran’s music scene that is rarely discussed honestly: the moment when a singer or rapper, after years of working independently and building an audience underground, decides to seek an official license.

From the outside, the decision may seem simple. An artist wants to work legally, perform concerts, sell tickets, and earn an income from music.

From inside the scene, however, the situation is more complicated.

In Iran, particularly for rap and what has long been described as “underground music,” obtaining a license is not simply an administrative process. It can also mean entering a structure whose rules may not always correspond with the reasons that led an artist to begin making music independently in the first place.

This raises an important question:

Why does an artist who has managed to build an audience without the official system sometimes choose to enter that same system after becoming successful?

The answer is not always political.

Sometimes the answer is much simpler: money.

Underground music can have an audience without being a complete industry

One of the problems facing independent music in Iran is its economy.

Online streaming and digital music platforms have not yet developed the same cultural and economic role in Iran that they have in many other markets. A large part of the audience is still not accustomed to paying for subscriptions, directly supporting artists through streaming, or treating digital music consumption as a regular economic transaction.

As a result, an artist can have millions of views and still struggle to build a stable income from those views.

Live performance changes the equation.

When an artist is able to legally perform concerts in different cities, music can suddenly become a much more conventional business: tickets, venues, advertising, sponsorships, commercial partnerships, and direct performance income.

For that reason, it would be unfair to describe every artist who seeks a license as someone who has simply “sold out” or “given up.”

Sometimes the artist simply wants to be able to live from work that has taken years to build.

But this is precisely where the more difficult question begins.

A license is more than permission to perform

For an artist, a license can provide access to part of the formal music economy. At the same time, entering the formal system means accepting the rules of that system.

The history of official positions toward rap in Iran illustrates this tension. In 2014, the head of the Music Office of Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance said that rap recordings could receive approval if they complied with the ministry’s regulations, while a ministry spokesperson said at the same time that no licenses had been issued for rap concerts. The episode reflected a longstanding ambiguity surrounding the status of rap within the official music system.

More recent reporting has also described a form of controlled visibility for rap within entertainment media while parts of the underground scene continue to face restrictions.

The important question, then, is not simply whether rap is “legal” or “illegal.”

The more complicated question is:

What kind of rap can enter the official system, and under what conditions?

That distinction matters.

What does an artist lose by entering the official system?

From the perspective of an independent artist, the problem is not necessarily the existence of a license itself.

The problem begins when approval becomes a mechanism that determines what the artist can say and what the artist cannot say.

If an artist must pass a work through an official approval process before releasing it, some subjects may be changed, softened, removed, or simply avoided.

This matters particularly in rap, because much of Iranian rap has drawn its identity from street life, personal experience, economic pressure, social frustration, relationships, and subjects that do not always fit comfortably within official cultural language.

Rap does not always need to sound polished.

Sometimes the value of a line comes precisely from saying something that has no comfortable place in formal language.

Why do some artists seek licenses anyway?

Because real life is different from theories about art.

Artists have rent to pay.

Studios cost money.

Production costs money.

Producers, musicians, mixing, mastering, music videos, promotion, and live performance all cost money.

At the same time, a successful artist has an audience that may want to see that artist on stage.

For some musicians, the choice between greater artistic freedom and greater professional security is therefore not an abstract political question.

It can directly affect their lives.

That is why I do not think every rapper who seeks a license has necessarily changed their beliefs.

They may simply have decided to exchange part of their creative freedom for greater professional and financial stability.

That decision can be criticized, but the human reason behind it should also be understood.

Why do some listeners react negatively?

Because underground listeners are not simply consumers.

They may have followed an artist for years precisely because the artist represented something that was harder to find in official music: directness.

When that same artist suddenly appears on television, in official programs, or inside the licensed music market, some listeners feel that something has changed.

Not necessarily because the artist has become a completely different person, but because the relationship between the artist and the audience has changed.

The listener may begin asking:

Is this still the same person who, a few years ago, said things that official media would not publish?

That distrust cannot simply be dismissed by saying that an artist has the right to make their own choices.

The artist has that right.

The audience also has the right to question the choice.

But there is another mistake

It is equally inaccurate to describe every licensed artist as “government-affiliated” and every independent artist as a hero of freedom.

Iran’s music scene is not that simple.

Some officially licensed musicians may disagree with many existing restrictions while still trying to work within the available system.

Other artists may have no political project at all and simply want to make music.

A license, by itself, therefore cannot establish an artist’s political identity.

What matters is the artist’s actual work, statements, and behavior.

Television and the controlled visibility of rap

Something more interesting has happened in recent years.

Rap, a genre that was for a long time strongly associated with the underground scene, has increasingly appeared in certain television programs and entertainment formats with broad audiences.

Recent analysis of Iran’s rap scene has argued that this controlled visibility should not automatically be interpreted as full acceptance of the genre. Instead, it can also be understood as a selective entry of rap into the formal entertainment industry, while questions of regulation, censorship, and commercial incentives remain.

This raises another question:

When a culture associated with the underground enters official media, has it actually become free, or has only the acceptable part of it been selected for visibility?

There is no single answer.

But the question is worth asking.

The real problem may not always be prohibition

Sometimes something more complicated than outright prohibition exists:

uncertainty about where the boundaries are.

When an artist does not know exactly which part of a song, performance, statement, or subject may cause problems, self-censorship can begin before any official instruction is given.

The artist simply starts thinking:

Maybe I should not say this.

In that sense, censorship is not always something written on paper.

Sometimes it enters the artist’s mind.

And perhaps that is one of the most difficult parts of creating art in a restrictive environment: before anyone tells you what you cannot say, you begin asking yourself what you should not say.

Rap and pop: the difference is not only musical

I do not see the difference between Iranian rap and pop simply as a difference in sound.

One important difference lies in the relationship each genre has with language.

Official pop is generally produced through a more structured path of production, approval, release, and performance. That naturally requires greater alignment with established rules.

Underground rap, by contrast, built much of its identity outside those routes.

When rap enters the official system, the issue is therefore not simply a change in musical style.

It can also represent a change in the relationship between the artist, the audience, and the institution.

This is an area that, in my view, deserves much more serious research.

The other side of the story matters too

If we only write about restrictions, the picture remains incomplete.

Many underground musicians genuinely face a difficult choice.

They can remain outside the official structure and retain greater freedom, while dealing with fewer performance opportunities, weaker commercial infrastructure, and less predictable income.

Or they can attempt to enter the formal system and gain access to larger professional opportunities.

Neither decision is easy.

Personally, if I were forced to choose, I would choose freedom of expression.

Not because I believe music must always be political.

But because, for me, music is a form of expression before it is a business.

If someone else gets to decide what I should write, what I should avoid, and which subjects I am allowed to address, then part of the reason I make music disappears.

Perhaps the better question is not “Who got a license?”

A more meaningful question may be:

What remained of the artist’s original voice after the license was obtained?

The answer will be different for every artist.

One may preserve almost everything.

Another may change only certain aspects.

One may consciously decide to work within the existing rules.

Another may decide never to enter the system at all.

That is why I think we should spend less time judging these artists and more time studying what is actually happening to them.

What is happening in Iranian music today is not simply a story about a few singers and a few licenses.

It is a story about the relationship between art, economics, audiences, regulation, and the boundaries of official culture.

And rap, perhaps more clearly than any other genre, has placed this tension directly in front of us.

Underground music does not truly leave the underground merely by appearing on a larger stage. It leaves only when the artist does not have to leave part of their voice behind in order to be heard.

Javad Safaee
Iranian Musician and Independent Writer