Narratives of recorded histories. Interview with Maral Mahmoudi
I had been trying to figure out ways of playing Iranian music at the club since I’ve always been compelled to share the sounds of Iran with my friends and show it in a wider context. Most Iranian music has a melancholy to it that makes it hard to play in a party setting so by combining it with club & reggaeton beats I was able to imbue my DJ sets with the spirituality of the music while people could still dance. I had just moved to Los Angeles from Virginia and was exposed to so much amazing music by the Mexican community in LA. From reggaeton to cumbia, I noticed that the rhythm of reggaeton complimented the Iranian music and allowed the music to step outside of its normal constraints and fell in love with the combination. I wanted to capture that feeling of sitting in my apartment with the windows open listening to Iranian classical and pop music while a car drove by blasting reggaeton.
