Protest Song for Mahsa Amini, Who Died in Iranian Police Custody, Receives Nearly 100,000 Submissions for New Grammy Award

variety.com:

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor One of the new honors the Grammy Awards will introduce at their next ceremony is song for social change — a special-merit award that “recognizes creators of message-driven music that responds to the social issues of our time and has the potential for positive global impact.” While the honor is “curated by a blue-ribbon committee,” there’s little question that the number of submissions will have an impact — and according to the Recording Academy, 95,000 of the 115,000 submissions received have been for Iranian musician Shervin Hajipour’s song, “Baraye,” a protest song about 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested and beaten by Iran’s so-called morality police for not wearing a proper head covering, in line with the country’s Islamic law.

The country has been wracked by protests — including women burning their hijabs, or headdresses, in front of police — in the weeks since her death was made public, despite the government’s efforts to suppress them and attempts at media coverage.

The lyrics to “Baraye” are taken entirely from messages that Iranians have posted online regarding their reasons for protesting: Each begins with the word baraye, which means “For …” or “Because of …” in Farsi.

In the song, Hajipour sings lyrics such as, “For dancing in the streets, for kissing loved ones” and “for women, life, freedom,” which crowds have often changed during the protests following Amini’s death.