The Famous Yezdi Mourning Singer’s Ban
The Koucha Bouk Yazd group, known in recent years for its unique Allah Allah chant, is active again this year during Muharram, but it lacks its former atmosphere.
According to our sources, Mostafa Mohsenzadeh has been banned from performing by a security agency this year, and it seems that the famous chant is also not permitted to be performed. The last video of this chant on the Koucha Bouk Yazd Instagram page is from last year, and in the recent videos of their mourning ceremonies, neither Mostafa Mohsenzadeh is seen nor is there any news of the Allah Allah chant. Many people have commented on the posts of this page asking why the Allah Allah chant is not being performed and why Mr. Mohsenzadeh is not performing, to which the lack of permission has been cited as the reason. Four years ago, there was also a rumor about the banning of Mostafa Mohsenzadeh and his colleague Soroush Rahmani, who performed this chant together, but it was later denied. A look at Mohsenzadeh’s Instagram page shows that his political views and lifestyle are naturally independent and different from the political life of government-affiliated singers. For instance, one of his posts shows him kissing his wife’s forehead. He is not just a mourning singer but also a professional vocalist and has no issue with women singing, as he has shared recordings of his wife singing on his Instagram. This past Nowruz, he performed a song called ‘Me and You’ at the Dad Hotel in Yazd with a music group and wrote on his Instagram, ‘This is the song my wife and I sang together on our wedding day, and maybe you performed it on the holiday.’ The Allah Allah chant has gained fame in recent years for its protest and unique content, which some have referred to as distinguished content compared to the superficial chants that have become common in recent years. In these years, famous mourning singers and performers have mostly belonged to one political faction and have enjoyed the support and backing of powerful institutions to the extent that, thanks to this safety net, they have freely launched harsh attacks on critical movements in their performances. This special support extends to the point where the government-affiliated Iran newspaper published a 16-page special edition last week for Mahmoud Karimi, a famous political performer with a history of gun-wielding.
