First lady, Jill Biden presented the 2023 Grammy‘s inaugural Best Song for Social Change, in light of artists and musicians who wrote music dedicated to real-world social issues. And this year’s recipient is an Iranian artist who went viral on social media, and who’s music was dedicated to the recent protest that happened in 2022.
Shervin Hajipour was recognized in this year’s Grammy Awards for the song “Baraye.” The song became an unofficial anthem for the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests. The Iran Wire reported that the young musician was arrested, days after the song was released and went viral. He was asked by the Iranian cyber police to take down the video.
In 2022, Iranian women and supporters went to the streets in protest of the death of Mahsa Amini. It was alleged that Iran’s morality police arrested Amini for “wearing her headscarf wrong” but was beaten to death by said police. Meanwhile, her father accused the police of killing his daughter. This sparked a nationwide protest, mostly led by women, who want the current Iranian regime to end. On December 2022, the Iranian government announced plans to disband the morality police in light of the protest.
Biden honored the young Iranian musician, who unfortunately was unable to attend the Grammys. She praised him for his music and how it made an impact on the Iranian protest. She ended her speech with a simple yet direct phrase: “women like freedom.”
The Best Song for Social Change is a special merit grammy award, dedicated to songs that “contain lyrical content that addresses a timely social issue and promotes understanding, peacebuilding, and empathy.” Another new award that was presented during this year’s event was the ‘Dr. Dre Global Impact Award‘, dedicated to artists who made contributions to rap, hip-hop, and black music.