Transcript
Ever since she was five, Rana Mansour’s father knew his daughter would be a singer and a musician.
Hamid Mansour, Rana’s father: “I cannot remember even a single time when Rana was sitting in the car with me and would not listen to music or not sing. She would basically live all her life in music, singing along with others in Farsi or English; mainly she was singing in English.”
Her parents started her off with piano lessons, and by 16, she had her first album. One hundred songs, she wrote later, and 200 concerts she performed across America; and today 26-year-old Rana is closer to making her second Album and closer to her roots.
Rana Mansour, singer, songwriter & musician: “I was struggling with my Persian identity as Iranian-American. Where do I belong in the Persian world and where do I belong in the American world! Doing this Persian Album, which I started a year ago, has even helped in the defining process of it.”
SHE PLAYS THE PIANO AND SINGS IN PERSIAN.
The Berkley School of Music graduate tried to find her way into music independently in New York, Texas, and L.A, where she was inspired to work on her second album. Now she’s back in Washington, living with her photographer father and closer to her mother who left Iran the year of the revolution in 1979.
Rana: “He’s just around the clock, 24/7 behind me all the time. It is a lot. It is constant (father tears up)…He works for himself, makes money and funds my project… In some way, he’s nurturing, too. But my mother is the nurturing one. She says: ‘Rana, follow your heart and do what makes you happy, always do that.’”
Father: “For a person who wanted to be a big actor, there is a daughter who can become a big singer…I believed in her… I live my dreams through her.”
Rana: “You know, how breathing is like second-nature, this music is second-nature. Knowing it is going to work, is second-nature to me… But, on the other hand, yeah, there is a lot riding on it, yeah.”
The 2005 VH1 Song of the Year finalist hopes to finish her Persian album by the end of the year, and perhaps visit Iran prior to its release.
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