Under the name Despicable Zee, Zahra released two self-produced EPs: Wednesday’s Child (2017) and Atigheh (2019). These works explored the layered experience of immigration and cultural duality, drawing deeply from her Iranian and Irish heritage. Her sound blended field recordings and intimate samples - old Iranian ballads, lullabies from her mother and grandmother, and moments captured from her son’s early years - pockets of memory stitched into sparse, experimental beats.
“My music is very much connected to exploring heritage through sound—learning by sampling and listening. There’s a lot of despair and hopelessness; it’s in the body, and it’s hard to shake. I’m trying to reframe that, to make space for joy and celebration in spite of it.”
As Despicable Zee, Zahra toured extensively across the UK and Europe, drumming for artists including Lafawndah, Young Knives, and taking part in a residency with Stealing Sheep. She performed Atigheh on the BBC Introducing stage at Latitude Festival before touring the EP nationally and supporting Islet on their album tour. Described as “a single ripple in a chain of intergenerational motion,” Atigheh weaves together themes of parenthood, belonging, and inherited grief - asking what it means to be ‘home’ in a body shaped by displacement.
In 2021, Zahra began performing under her full name, Zahra Haji Fath Ali Tehrani, marking a shift in her creative direction toward more personal, political, and healing narratives. Her 2023 EP For You opens with the single They Say - a raw and urgent track addressing survival and protection in the aftermath of abuse. It’s a wake-up call, and a call to action. The EP toured to six venues across the UK, including Jacqueline du Pré Music Building in Oxford.
Her most recent album, هالا – HĀLĀ (2025), serves as a sonic journal: a deeply personal record built around voice journals recorded between 2023 and 2024. The tracks centre on Zahra’s voice and the kalimba - percussive, resonant, and reflective - offering a meditative soundscape that traces her thoughts as an attempt to accept all parts of herself, including the parts that are afraid, angry and hurting.
Residencies & research
Wild Mix Residency & Musical (2024): Developed an immersive musical with an ensemble of singers, drummers, and a kickboxer, exploring what healing feels like in the body.
Ireland Residency (June 2024): A creative research project on diaspora and belonging, composing new music while “visiting one home to find another.”
Stealing Sheep Residency (2019): Suffragette Summer, a collaborative marching band performance platforming female percussionists, as part of the Both Sides Now initiative.