Ariana Delawari is an Afghan-American musician, activist and filmmaker. Her new solo album, I Will Remember, is out today on Manimal Vinyl / Virgin Music. She spoke with NPR’s Ailsa Chang about the record and has also shared a new music video for the album’s title track.
Her film We Came Home (2013) documents her family, her travels to and from Afghanistan over a ten year period, in which Delawari recorded her first album. That album, Lion of Panjshir, was released on David Lynch’s record label to great acclaim.
I Will Remember Music Video from Ariana Delawari on Vimeo.
The events that transpired during the recording of her new album, I Will Remember, were even more personally significant and traumatic, as Delawari’s mother and brother-in-law both passed away and she saw her home country fall to the Taliban. Delawari explains:
“I started to write about my mother, about living and dying, Earth and Heaven, Afghanistan and my life growing up in America, refugees, love of different forms, and about the social justice and environmental justice themes that my mom taught me about which shaped my own activism as well. I never could have imagined that COVID-19 would hit a few months before she died, and that I would lose her during quarantine. I’ll never forget the day I wheeled her up to a nurse in a hazmat suit at a sidewalk and couldn’t even kiss her goodbye.”
“I never could have imagined that just as I was finishing the album, a little over a year later, we Afghans would lose Afghanistan to the Taliban. Afghanistan is my whole heart, it is the cause of my entire lifetime and all of my activism. I am a very loud anti-Taliban Peace Activist, so the fall of the country was my biggest nightmare coming true.”
Delawari was essentially born into her role as an activist and her mother was even friends with Malcolm X. She explains, “I was born just after the Soviets Invaded Afghanistan. I attended my very first protest in utero when my father led an anti-Soviet Invasion protest at the Federal Building in Westwood. Four decades later, I would be at that very same location at a protest I helped organize after the fall of the country to the Taliban.”
“My mom’s name was Setara which means “star,” and she died literally in the middle of a Leonid Meteor shower, so there are themes of stars on the album too. She also died the same day that Prince died, who I like to imagine is one of the many magical cosmic souls who welcomed her at her celestial dance party 😉 I tried to honor her as much as I could, and I wanted to connect with everyone out there who lost loved ones during Covid19. I wanted to transmute deep grief and loss into something hopeful and meaningful. I also wanted to reach the hearts of my people, and honor Afghanistan and our refugees. I wanted to transmute the losses of my mother, brother, and my motherland… finding hope as we all move forward together.”
