The New York Times referred to Mohsen Namjoo as the “Bob Dylan of Iran”. Unfortunately this reference is not only inaccurate, but also misleading. It is of course difficult to introduce an artist foreign to English speaking audiences without drawing parallels with a known name. Namjoo is among the most difficult cases to categorize and box up in an easily palatable package. To make direct comparisons between any artist is only indicative of the difficulty to convey the essence of an artist’s work to the reader. The problem however, starts with the artist himself. Namjoo can’t be boxed, packaged and bowed up! Non Persian speaking audiences miss at least half of the substance that Namjoo offers in his work. Half of the Persian speaking audiences miss almost all of the substance of his work. Namjoo himself seems to be oblivious to where he lives as a musician and poet. He gallops in an artistic battlefield that claims the most victims. Once an artist jumps off of the steep cliffs of the mainstream, or claws up and over the tall, ancient walls of traditional castles, he or she would find themselves in a battleground that has no rules. A no holds barred jungle where even Darwin’s survival of the fittest rule doesn’t hold.! ! The artistic territory outside the traditional castles and mainstream plateaus is vainly referred to as “Experimental”. A characterization as futile and useless as comparing one artist with another in order to focus the readers’ curiosity. The elegant concision of referring to Namjoo as the Bob Dylan of Iran indicates the author’s unease with what Namjoo does. A constant state of disassembly and reassembly of literary and musical genres. While it is impossible to categorize and concisely package his work and where he stands, it is very easy to detect the end of the Namjoo phenomenon. That is when a clearly defined and packaged Mohsen Namjoo style surfaces. Namjoo ceases to exist when he becomes the “Bob Dylan of Iran”! Mohsen Namjoo at his best, is like a mutant honey bee. An agile, curious and constantly motive artistic insect that doesn’t transplant the seeds of one genre to another, but assembles the germs to create new living artistic organisms that are sometimes bitter, cactus like thorny beings like OY, and sometimes fragrant colourful flowers like Toranj. Sometimes he abandons the germination process altogether and creates a honey-like Useless Kisses. The germs of any given creation are familiar but the creation itself shares little in common with the sources of those germs. A clear example of of this thick, honey-like creation is his latest album, Trust the Tangerine Peel!