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A stirring song – sung, apparently, by a young woman, with lyrics expressing the hope that sacrifice will lead to a better future – has become a soundtrack for Iranians in the first part of 2026, as the country experienced the brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests and then the US-Israeli air assault, now in its third week.
However, the singer, called Nava, is a product of artificial intelligence, created by a London-based artist of Iranian origin, Farbod Mehr.
Nava cannot be arrested, unlike the Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour, who was jailed after his song Baraye became the unofficial anthem for the 2022 protest movement.
The character represented Iranian women, who cannot sing in public, Mehr said. “I did it for the people, and I loved how they reacted to it,” he said.
“From the blood of the youth, tulips have bloomed,” Nava sings. The song, Javanan-e Vatane (Youth of the Homeland), features lyrics by the 20th-century poet Aref Qazvini, whose work called for resistance to authoritarianism and imperialism. It has been viewed 13m times on Instagram alone.
Nava has released an album worth of tracks over the last few months. But it was a song put out at the end of January, at the height of a brutal crackdown by the authorities on protesters in Iran, that resonated most, first with the bloodshed on the streets, and even more so now with the bombardment by US and Israeli air forces.
In online comments posted on Nava’s songs there was some debate over whether the singer was real, but for others it made no difference.
“People want to see themselves in this character. The brain tries to find a connection with the character,” said Mehr. “It has become the voice of the times we are experiencing.”
He said the blend of a classical Iranian song with a modern French folk melody had hooked Iranians everywhere, with more than 70% of the views coming from within Iran, despite an internet blackout there.
Mehr, 34, a graduate of London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art whose visual art combines geometric forms with Iranian mysticism, moved with his family from Iran to the UK as a teenager. He said he felt hope and sadness as he watched the war from afar.
Nava’s social media persona shows a life well beyond music, as she walks around London and travels to other countries. Blurring the virtual and real worlds further, Nava has collaborated with a real-life musician, the Iranian singer Mehrad Hidden, and in April will make an appearance on stage as a hologram at gigs in Washington and Toronto, alongside human DJs.
