LOS ANGELES (NPR) — On Friday, a new name was added to the Hollywood Walk of Fame: Andranik Madadian, who performs as Andy and has been nicknamed the Prince of Persian Pop, is the first Iranian artist to have a star on the Walk, according to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Andy has toured the world and amassed a huge fan base among Persian and Armenian Americans; Last week, those fans turned out in huge numbers in Los Angeles for his star’s unveiling, chanting his name throughout the ceremony.
“They told me to speak from the heart, and the problem is I can’t catch up with my heart, cause it’s running too fast,” he joked during his speech.
Andy, who was born in Tehran, Iran, has been living in Los Angeles for some 40 years.
“All my life, I dreamed of playing rock music and I knew this was the place,” he said. “Los Angeles was the destination and everything else was the journey,”
Andy was in love with music growing up in Iran, where he said his family didn’t have running water until he was in grade seven and his father had to take out a loan to pay for his first guitar. By his early 20s, he was just about to release a debut single, but the Iranian Revolution canceled those plans.
“There was a revolution, everybody fled. And of course, I was lucky — the beginning of it, I came to America,” he remembered.