Iman Ebrahimi

Iman was born in Tehran. Coming from a family of musicians, Iman also started singing shortly after his knowledge with the piano evolved. His father, Ebi Ebrahimi used to play the saxophone in a local band during his high school and college years. His mother, Fariba Vakili, though not particularly good with any instrument, was known by her friends and family for her beautiful voice. Both parents used to sing at home, when they were at family parties or in other public events, something that also Iman started to inherit and get comfortable with.

At the age of 13, attending his father's cousins wedding, Iman was asked to step on stage to play the piano and sing a song. In an interview with TV Persia, Iman said that this was the moment in his life when he realized that he actually could make it in the music industry.

At the age of 15, he immigrated to Denmark along with his mother and little brother Omid Ebrahimi. At the immigration center, he got quickly known for his unique voice, as he was often asked to perform in Persian cultural events.

Once he turned 18, he was asked by the Danish government to apply for asylum separate from his family, something that was very uncommon since he immigrated to Denmark when he was under 18 (at the age of 15) and was already in a family application with his mother and brother. This ended in a denial of his separate asylum application, which resulted in the Danish government intending to send him back to Iran, something Iman did not want. Therefore he moved to Norway all alone, at the age of 18

Two years later, his family's application in Denmark was also denied, which made his mother and brother move to Norway to seek asylum. His brother, Omid Ebrahimi, who had just turned 12 at the time, also had a great interest in music. Omid started experimenting, at a relatively early age, with music editing programs and components. He was especially interested in the concept of mixing and editing. This was the musical turning point for both brothers.

A few years later, when his brother Omid Ebrahimi turned 15, Omid received a professional recording microphone as a gift from his mom. This took Omid's editing skills to the next level, and resulted in that Iman started recording with his younger brother. With limited resources, in other words only a microphone, and a few barely functional components, Iman started to do some amateur recording in his brother's room.

Over the years, they spent time, money and other resources to turn Omid's room into a decent home studio, something that turned out to benefit Iman greatly over the upcoming years.

By the age of 24, when his brother was 17, they had managed to create a few professional songs. A year later, Iman tells TV Persia that his younger brother Omid, sent a few songs to two well known music studios nearby their home in order to get them to sign Iman. One of the studios, while amused by the fact that a foreign singer wanted to record in a Norwegian studio, something that they found quite weird, did not want to take the risk to record music in a language that they clearly did not even understand. However, positive news came back from the other studio. The producer there, though not understanding a word of what Iman was singing about, knew there was something special and unique about Iman's voice, and decided to sign him despite the risks of it being hard to find a marked for Persian music outside of Iran.

A year later, at the age of 26, Iman became an Iranian pop-sensation with the song "Baron", which instantly climbed its way up on the Iranian top lists. With Iran's strict regime, his music (just as any other artist outside of Iran) became illegal in Iran, because of its "Western form"[4] and content about love and freedom. However this did not spread the quick spread of his music through the Iranian underground, which made him gain hundreds of thousands of fans in a short time.

Over the years it has become very difficult, not only for Iman, but for all Persian artists to spread their new songs, specially over the Internet since the Iranian regime has blocked sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc.[5] There are however ways for the people inside Iran to visit sites such as Myspace and Backupflow, where Iman's songs have gained huge popularity. With over 200 000 plays on Myspace alone,[6] Iman has made a name for himself during the short time he has entered the music industry.

Iman recently released his first album "Hasrat", that include his two new hit songs "Be Yade To"[7] and "Az Hame Del Boridam".[8] His brother, Omid Ebrahimi is the executive producer of the second song, "Az Hame Del Boridam".

• Official website: https://web.archive.org/web/20141103232338/http://www.imanebrahimi.com/