Introducing: Afghan Star, hosted by John Legend

America's Crime Lab

iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope

Society & Culture, History, True Crime

4.8 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2024

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From the fall of the Taliban until its return, people all over Afghanistan planned their lives around Afghan Star. People would pack into apartments. Villages would hook up generators to a single tv so crowds could watch. New Year’s celebrations would come to a halt, all to watch this one show. Over its 15 seasons, Afghan Star spotlighted an Afghanistan that could be: women singing without hijabs, Afghanistan’s first rapper, people of warring ethnic groups hugging and cheering for each other on stage. And it launched a cultural revolution. This is the story behind it all– from how a ragtag team scrambled to make the show every week, to the dangers they faced for trying to push the country forward. In Afghanistan, a cultural revolution was televised through a musical talent show, and this is its story. Hosted by John Legend.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Once upon a time in Afghanistan, the Taliban band music.
0:09.0	Radios were smashed. Instruments burned. People buried their televisions and cassette tapes six feet under.
0:17.0	And for five years, there was silence. But one man, Dawood Siddiqui, refused to bow down. He risked his life to join an underground
0:31.1	network of people smuggling music and movies around the country.
0:36.2	Moving a VCR from one house to another house.
0:39.4	Moving a TV, it was kind of like you moving a track full of drugs.
0:45.0	And when the Taliban regime finally fell,
0:49.0	Dawood helped kick-start a revolution.
1:07.0	A revolution in the form of an Afghan version of American Idol called Afghan Star. I was a celebrity of the country. Every year I was like on the skies.
1:17.0	It was something new like never before in the history of Afghanistan. It was something new like never before in the history of Afghanistan.
1:21.0	It was performing between all the insecurities and all the explosions and all the disappointment.
1:30.0	That was of light in the darkness. Over the next decade, Afghan Star taught millions of people how to vote.
1:47.0	Afghan Star taught millions of people how to vote.
1:53.0	It bridged ethnic divides and became a platform for women to fight for equal rights.
1:59.0	It was a symbol of the new Afghanistan.
2:04.0	It's freedom, and freedom feels very good.
2:07.4	It was a lightning rod.
2:09.4	I think it was called Devil Star by some people. And those people were hell-bent on crushing the show and
2:20.0	everything it stood for. If you ask the Taliban member,
2:25.0	what would you change the most in Afghanistan?
2:28.0	People would say Afghan style.
2:30.0	And they actually set on this TV show that my head should be cut off.
	...

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