Anna Demchenko, exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
Vestnik Kavkaza" continues its "Music Treasury" section, in which it will be possible not only to read materials about music and musicians of the Caucasus, but also to listen to them, as well as view videos. Today a guest of the section is the singer Mansur.
Songs sung by Mansur are popular in Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Tajikistan. They are popular among the older generation and young people, men and women. His songs are played at various events and parties – from sport events to weddings. Despite a late start in music (after 20 years), Mansur managed not only to become popular among millions of people, but also to form an original performance style which influence music of the whole region since the early 1990s.
Mansur Jafari was born on Jumy 28th, 1971, in Tehran. They said that the boy was very artistic and musical in childhood. Before his family moved to Los Angeles, when he was 13, Mansur lived in his grandmother’s house in Tehran. In the USA the joyful and light guy soon find new friends and adapted to a new situation. However, his soul stayed in his fatherland, and he missed it from the very beginning.
Mansur is a bright example of a self-made man. Initially the young migrant achieved success in business – by the time he was 20, he had a prosperous shop of beepers and cell phones. Earlier Mansur was involved in furniture trade business. However, money didn’t blind him, didn’t make him stop in his development. In 1991 he began to record his first album called Ferferehayeh Bi Baad. For three years he had been learning singing. He worked on songs day by day, till he achieved perfection of a sound. He paid a great attention to a choice of producers and authors of songs. He gathered a unique team of professionals: he worked with Ghomaishi, Yamini, Shameizade, and popular authors, such as Ghanbari and Fardmanesh.
The record was done only in 1994. The young man became famous immediately - Ferferehayeh Bi Baad was commercially successful, as well as many other further records. One of reasons for this is that Mansur brilliantly combines two styles which seem opposite and belonging to different worlds, i.e. traditional East melodies with modern minimalist popular music and techno with its clear rhythms. The singer has found a common platform for them; he created a new original movement which reconsiders traditional melodies within the modern popular culture, but preserves its sophistication. In Mansur’s works West and East musical traditions not only live together, but present an integral union. Each person finds something personal in the music. For young people, Mansur’s lively, joyful, modern music is an original world of the traditional musical culture; for the older generation, it is a symbol of succession, a bond between the old and the new.
