King Raam

Raam is an Iranian musician, writer and podcast host. He started his musical career as the singer/songwriter/founder of Hypernova, a punk band born in the undergrounds of Tehran. With a great deal of international press behind his band, including features in New York Times, MTV, Billboard, NPR, CNN, VICE, NME and Vanity Fair, Raam paved the way for a new generation of aspiring underground Iranian artists.

In January 2018, Raam’s father,  Kavous Seyed Emami, a prominent environmentalist, was arrested in Tehran under false charges of espionage. Two weeks after his arrest he was killed in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison. Raam and his family attempted to flee Iran, but the authorities detained his mother and confiscated her passport. Raam and his brother were allowed to leave, but his mother was held hostage in Iran for 582 days.

Besides his live shows with his band, Raam has also channeled his creative energy into a one man storytelling performance called “Departure” about his family’s experience and his father’s legacy, woven together with his music. “Departure” was developed during his residency in the Safe Havens Incubator for Musicians NYC (SHIM NYC), a residency program for at-risk musicians created by Artistic Freedom Initiative and Tamizdat. He also has a podcast in Persian called “Masty o Rasty,” which translates to the Drunken Truth. Since its inception in 2020 the show has had over 40 million streams.

Raam now lives in London, where he is working on and also starring in a theatre performance by British-Iranian author Javad Alipoor called “Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World.”