With its Iranian melodies, instrumentation and backing singers, Sheeran\u2019s joyful new single is a reminder of how culture transcends borders<\/p>\n
The Farsi word \u201cazizam\u201d \u2013 meaning my dear or my darling in English \u2013 may not have the same level of global resonance as habibi or ma ch\u00e9rie, but to us Persians it\u2019s a daily refrain. We use it with our family, partners, friends; my cat probably thinks it\u2019s her middle name by now. So it felt huge when Ed Sheeran announced that the lead single from his new album would be called just that: Azizam<\/a>.<\/p>\n The track, inspired by the Iranian heritage of Stockholm-based producer Ilya Salmanzadeh, has divided critics, with a Telegraph review calling it \u201ca slice of pure pop froth that couldn\u2019t be any more generic and upbeat if it was written by an AI programme\u201d. But these reproaches are missing a whole other dimension: that the song has triggered a huge emotional response from millions of Iranians around the world. \u201cHearing a beloved artist embrace our language with such care? We feel it. And we\u2019re here for it,\u201d said one popular comment on Sheeran\u2019s Instagram.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With its Iranian melodies, instrumentation and backing singers, Sheeran\u2019s joyful new single is a reminder of how culture transcends borders The Farsi word \u201cazizam\u201d \u2013 meaning my dear or my darling in English \u2013 may not have the same level of global resonance as habibi or ma ch\u00e9rie, but to us Persians it\u2019s a daily … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}