Perhaps the most vivid memory that Iranian music audiences carry of Nima DW is his unforgettable livestream hosting of Dorcci’s album YOUNG MORVARID. For a long time, that moment became woven into the fabric of Iranian pop culture. Yet this image represents only one chapter of a much broader story. From Esm Nadareh Podcast to his vlogs documenting the lives and work of Iranian hip hop artists, and from founding the DW Worldwide label to introducing and supporting a remarkable number of musicians across different genres, Nima has steadily shaped himself into one of the most influential figures in contemporary Iranian music and a rare unifying presence within it. The exhibition Blind Elephant at Dastan’s Basement, along with the five-day livestream he produced during the event, offered me the chance to talk with him about the many layers of this project.
In this new setting, Nima presented an entirely different version of himself. The environment placed him in a more demanding situation than anything he had previously faced. Each moment he spent before the camera was shaped by the idea of self-destruction, which he considered the central axis of the performance. With no predetermined script, the work unfolded through pure improvisation and slowly assembled itself like a puzzle shaped by the presence of friends in the room and the flow of unexpected events. At one point in our conversation, he described one of the project’s central aims as creating an opening for himself and for the community around him, a community that he believes is often treated as marginal, to appear in a new and surprising position.
What follows is Nima’s own account of the intentions, motivations, and singular experiences that brought this project to life.
Blind Elephant
For months, Sam Keshmiri, the curator of Blind Elephant, and I moved through conversations and experiments, testing ideas and waiting for the right moment to make a collaboration between me and Dastan’s Basement a reality. What made my role in this project so exciting came from a recurring pattern that has shaped my life for as long as I can remember. The statement I set for myself in this project was what I called a self-destruction speedrun. This pattern has taken root in many areas of my life and, over time, has become a method I return to repeatedly, both to find my way back to myself and to dismantle the unusual behavioral habits that formed during certain periods.
Self-Destruction Speedrun
I am currently navigating what I call the post-corporate chapter of my life, a period when I finally chose to pursue the things I had always cared about but kept postponing. One morning, in the midst of an exhausting year, I woke up, looked in the mirror, and felt an immediate aversion to my reflection. At the heart of that feeling was the sense that I had sold my own soul, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and for the wrong price. The concept of the self-destruction speedrun, which became the focal point of this livestream, allowed me to take something I normally confront only in private and place it in public view. By doing so, I could move beyond a difficult stage of my life and gradually reshape myself into someone I could at least tolerate, someone through whom I could feel the faint trace of my own origins once again.
Stepping Away from the Edges of Society
But what does this project truly mean for my community? From the outside, I am not sure how it appears. Seen from a distance, one might assume they are simply a group drawn together by music. That impression likely comes from the fact that Esm Nadareh Podcast has been my most widely recognized work, and that particular side of me is the one most people know. Yet the real appeal of this community has little to do with musical taste. What unites us is far more personal: these are people who, like me, exist on the margins.
Their social and economic circumstances often make it impossible to engage with spaces like Dastan’s Basement, and in many cases, they have never truly felt welcomed in environments of that kind. Although I have lived in Tehran for about fifteen years, it is only in the past six that I have been visible in any public way. Before that, I moved through the city like a ghost. It is no secret that spaces such as these remain largely closed off, not yet democratized, and far from inclusive.
At this moment, I am enduring a difficult period, hoping that those around me—people I care for, who respect me, and with whom I share genuine connection—will not have to face the same hardships. For me, another layer of meaning in this event was offering this community a real presence in a space they would not normally enter, a place that is, by any definition, not their safe zone.
Selling the Soul
By sheer coincidence, my livestream happened to fall on my birthday. I told the guys not to bring me gifts in the usual sense, but to give me something that felt like a piece of their soul instead. Among us, there is now a shared understanding of what it means to sell one’s soul, and the gifts they brought reflected that understanding in the most intimate ways. There was the suicide note written by someone’s ex-girlfriend, the last piece of foil another had used for drugs, a twelve-year sobriety coin, a knife that had belonged to one friend’s grandfather, and several other offerings that carried a similar weight.
Dorcci’s Birthday Gift
On my birthday, Dorcci gifted me the track KALAFEGI 2, a song that had been recorded three or four years earlier in a remarkable way: Dorcci held his phone up to his face and performed it in one take—a freestyle with no cuts, no ad-libs, just a beat and his voice captured through the Voloco app. Around that time, during one of Dariu$h’s livestreams, he played the track, which, like me, had become one of his favorite songs. The raw, unpolished energy of the track has always made it one of the most captivating songs for me.
Back then, I hadn’t heard from Dorcci for nearly six months, so one night I sent him a message: “KALAFEGI 2.” He immediately sent me the file. This year, on my birthday, around three or four in the morning, Dorcci was in the chat. Knowing I already had the track, he suddenly said: “Play KALAFEGI 2 here as your birthday gift.”
Belief in Love
This self‑destructive part of me may not be immediately visible to readers of The Persian Magazine, but my close friends and even those who follow me on my channel know its depth. I have never tried to hide it from them. Everyone who stood by me during those days, from Alborz and my dad to Mostafa, Dorcci, Tlkhoon, Aminak, Zakhar, Farshad, Kiana, Arda, and the rest, are the people who have kept me alive. They have become so deeply woven into my life that they now feel like the pillars that hold everything together.
This is why the livestream needed no preparation. If each of these people had been scheduled or arranged in advance, the final result would never have carried the same magnetism or authenticity. What I was doing in that program was, in a sense, staging my own self‑destruction. And in real life, when someone reaches a similar state, these are exactly the people who can pull them back, the ones who soften the collapse before it becomes irreversible.
During those few days, Aminak released BARAN, Tlkhoon shared several snippets, and a series of other events unfolded. None of it had been planned. Everything happened in real time, entirely improvised. It felt as if the universe had aligned itself to make sure my self‑destruction speedrun would not turn into something final. This is what fragile people do for one another. What appeared on camera simply reflected what happens out of sight. The entire group constantly checks in on one another’s mental well‑being so that no one is left to fall apart.
The Closest Friend of Iran’s Loneliest People
Around that time, I overheard someone describe me in a way that felt a little frustrating in the moment. Looking back now, however, I realize what an extraordinary description it was. Bita Fayyazi, an artist whose work was displayed in the gallery but who didn’t know me personally, asked one of my friends about me and the work I was doing. My friend replied, “Nima is the closest friend of Iran’s loneliest people.”
