»Passaporte« by HJirok off the upcoming mixtape compilation »Free/Future/Music« curated by Altin Village & Mine. Vocals and co-produced by Hani Mojtahedy. Produced by Andi Toma. Video by Soud Namat. Art direction by Hani Mojtahedy.
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When Hani Mojtahedy was little, all she wanted was a passport. When the Iranian-born Kurdish singer visited a bazaar in the town of Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan, she was reminded of her childhood dreams by the kids she met there. Refugees from the Iranian, Syrian, and Turkish regions of Kurdistan, they wanted the blonde woman to show them her passport, to know what colour it had. This inspired »Passaporte,« the follow-up single to the debut album by HJirok, the fictional character Mojtahedy has created for her joint project with Mouse on Mars member Andi Toma. Just like their recently released LP for Altin Village & Mine, the track takes inspiration from the poetry of Kurdish writer Abdulla Pashew (Ebdulla Peşêw) and merges influences of traditional music with the production methods of contemporary electronic music.
The video for »Passaporte« was filmed on-site in Dohuk during Ramadan season (the reason why Hani Mojtahedy wearing a headscarf). Besides scenes from everyday life in a city that has for over a decade has become an involuntary new home to thousands of Kurdish and Êzîdî people displaced by political conflicts and war, the video features Mojtahedy among the children who are dreaming the same dream she had before she was able to leave Iran in 2004. With both the song and video, Mojtahedy aims to shed a light on their situation and the universality of their plight. »These children can’t get a proper education, they have no future to look forward to,« she says. Accordingly, their hopes for one day owning a passport of their own are not an expression of longing for national identity. »What they really wish for is to be able to go anywhere they want to, to be free-just like any other child in this world.«
»Passaporte« is, much like the HJirok debut album »Hjirok« (written with a lowercase J), a song about liberation-about freedom from want and fear, freedom of movement and the freedom to choose. It is a literally utopian song that dares to dream of a world in which nobody needs a passport.
With the release of the »Passaporte« single and video, Altin Village & Mine announces a new mixtape series that will be published digitally. The instalments of the »Free/Future/Music« series will be roughly one hour long and on average feature ten brand-new collaborative tracks from different groups and artists affiliated with or admired by the label. Each individual episode will be accompanied by an essay written by different authors who will reflect upon the possible meanings of the words that make up the title of the series and the interplay of those concepts in the material reality of musicians and artists everywhere. Once the series has concluded, »Free/Future/Music« will also be released as a stand-alone compilation, with half of the proceeds being donated to charities.