In Conversation | Iranian-American Artist Neena Roe Remains Hopeful In Humanity

Neena Roe has never felt more aware of her Iranian identity than in this present moment.

Roe, the daughter of Iranian refugee-immigrants, walks the all-too-familiar tightrope of emotions that diaspora communities endure when their homelands are caught in war and death.

Since January, Roe watched from her home in New York as Iranians protested across the country, risking their lives to demonstrate against governmental oppression, rising inflation, and corruption. 

Thousands of protestors across Iran were killed by the Iranian government over the course of the protests in January and February this year, culminating in the largest massacres in the country’s history.

And now, amidst the backdrop of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Roe finds herself once again glued to the news, looking for any and all updates on what’s happening.

The artist remains acutely aware that diasporic opinions are coming from a place of privilege compared to the people living in Iran during this war. Yet those feelings exist, on the periphery, as Roe contends with how to process each piece of news.

‘It’s like a tornado of emotions and feelings,’ Roe admits over Zoom from a café in New York. ‘I’ve never lived in a moment where so many people have given my homeland so much attention. Parsing through the noise amidst my homeland experiencing so much pain and suffering has been a lot on my soul, on my mind, on my spirit. I pride myself on being someone who remains informed, especially when it comes to the plight of marginalized communities, be it my own or another. I want to honour that and remain informed about what’s happening. At the same time, when it is your ancestral land, you have to be protective of yourself because it grips your heart in a way that is unique.’

She pauses, collecting her thoughts, then continues: ‘I try to hang on to a sense of hope that Iranians will have self-determination and will have liberation and will be able to live calmly and peacefully. It’s hard to see that path right now, and it’s been hard to see it [historically]. But I think when we start to lose our sense of hope is when we’ve truly lost the battle. So I’m trying to maintain that, despite everything that’s making it really hard.’

Roe shares that her sense of hope and optimism comes from her faith and her family, stressing that history remains on the side of the Iranian people.

‘When I see all of this suffering, all this difficulty, all this pain, I know that victory is inevitable. My parents had to flee—if they have hope, if they are able to be resilient, what excuse do I have? I’ve never had to live through the things that they’ve had to live through. We inherit that hope from our families,’ she says. ‘Seeing the way that people my age and a little bit older who have children are instilling their culture and language in their kids, the way that we are keeping our heritage alive—even though we are a displaced people—I think that also gives me a lot of faith and a lot of hope.’

The up-and-coming artist grew up in Detroit, bordering one of the largest Middle Eastern and North African diaspora communities in the United States. Her parents exposed her to the rich cultural history and tradition of Iran at a young age, passing on their mother tongue to her and encouraging Roe to perform in Farsi.

Despite a deep appreciation for Iranian artists and their technical vocal abilities, Roe felt hesitant to sing in Farsi publicly.

That changed in 2020, when her father played ‘Masti‘ by Iranian icon Hayadeh for her and translated the lyrics for his daughter to fully appreciate and understand.

“There’s this expression in Persian: boghz,” Roe begins as she recounts this memory. “It feels like this blockage in your throat. It happens when you feel sort of like an inexpressible grief or  an overwhelming sense of emotion that’s rooted in melancholy. I could sense it coming up within [my father] as he was explaining these lyrics to me. I would listen to that song a lot after that happened.”

That ultimately led her to performing “Masti” a capella at Cal-Earth Institute’s Rumi Dome outside of Los Angeles, her friend videotaping the intimate experience. 

@neenaroe

I remember my dad sitting me down and translating this song for me word for word ♥️ #persianmusic #acapellasinging #persiantiktok

♬ original sound – hi i’m neena roe

After posting the clip on social media, Roe received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback that inspired her to continue singing in Farsi.

Her 2024 debut EP, how to be alone, draws on her singer-songwriter abilities, a vulnerably introspective and intimate experience that sees Roe pulling from elements of American folk and acoustic guitar rock.

Yet it is Roe’s most recent single, “ROSAS”, that has received quite a bit of buzz, thanks in large part from her linguistic ability to effortlessly switch between Farsi and Spanish, the latter of which she learned while she lived in El Salvador for a year.

The song draws inspiration from her multi-hyphenate identity, a fusion between Detroit R&B, Latin urban percussion and Persian instrumentation and melodies.

“ROSAS” is the first song Roe was the main producer for—and her most vulnerable, singing about a love gone sour.

“Usually I write things in retrospect. I’ll go through something and when I’m not in it anymore, I write about it,” she explains. “But with ‘ROSAS,’ I wrote it as I was going through it, and so when I released it, I was still kind of in it. In the way that I produced this, it’s more me. It’s the three languages that I speak. So much of myself is in it. My other music, it’s more like maybe one facet of who I am, whereas ‘ROSAS’ felt like multiple facets of who I am.”

If anything, “ROSAS” provided a glimpse into Roe’s guiding philosophy as a musician and a human being navigating her multi-hyphenate identity.

Recently, the artist performed at a cultural event in solidarity with the Iranian people in New York City. Rather than perform any of her original music, Roe chose to sing covers of classic Persian songs that would have been instantly recognizable and meaningful for the audience.

She received an overwhelming response, with many who watched her perform sharing stories afterward about how her music helped them connect with their Iranian roots and with their family.

‘As an artist, I think that is my role and my duty, is to use music in its highest form,’ Roe says. ‘I think music at its highest form will elevate spirits and make people feel like they’re not alone. I hope that my artistry and my music does that, especially right now when our people in Iran and across the diaspora are just so broken.’

But her faith in humanity remains unshaken and rooted in a greater good that believes in the resilience of spirit, an admirable feeling to have, given the war in Iran.

‘I genuinely believe that the world is going to get better,’ Roe shares with a sense of optimism in her voice. ‘I genuinely believe that we have the potential for global unity. I genuinely believe that most people are good, and most people just want to live peacefully and happily and just want stability in their own lives. I think eventually that goodness is going to gain enough power that it’ll be able to overcome the individuals that are manipulating our respective traumas to divide us.’