'Every day a new incident
It's easy to say
What is abnormal has become normal for me
Paranoia, my brain can't handle it'
In the song 'Olay' (Incident), Turkish rapper Ezhel compellingly expresses the mood of his generation. Over a slow, ominous trap beat, he raps about the frustration and powerlessness that many Turkish youth feel as they watch their country descend into repression, violence and authoritarian populism. This is aptly depicted in the accompanying video clip: a series of newsreel images that remind viewers of all the major news in Turkey in recent years, such as street protests, terrorist attacks, refugee flows, and the failed coup. It's a visual punch in the stomach. Yet the track is more than an indictment of Turkey's course. Above all, it is a reflection on the emotional toll it has taken.
'Olay' became a big hit in 2019, partly thanks to its controversial video clip, which provoked strong reactions in the pro-government media. It cemented Ezhel's status as the most important rapper of his generation, whose success has been instrumental in Turkish rap's commercial breakthrough in Turkey in recent years. The genre was born in Berlin in the 1990s. The pioneers of the Turkish-German rap group Cartel were so popular that they sold out entire stadiums in Istanbul. But in the decades that followed, Turkish rap remained a relatively small subculture, not taken seriously by the Turkish music industry.
Love at first sight
Ezhel changed that. Since 2018, he has been the most listened to Turkish artist on streaming service Spotify every year. But his success came at a price. He came into the crosshairs of conservative moralists within the government, who see Turkish rap as a pernicious influence on the youth. After being charged in 2018 for encouraging drug use in some of his songs and spending a month in a high-security prison in Istanbul, he moved to Berlin. He has not performed in Turkey since. He regularly gives concerts in various European countries, where he has many devoted fans in the Turkish diaspora. On Friday he will be in Ahoy in Rotterdam.
The basis for Ezhel's success lies in Ankara, where he was born in 1991 as Ömer Sercan Ipekçioglu. He was raised by his mother, a professional folk dancer, who often listened to music and danced at home. She was on her own after her husband left the family. Ezhel first came into contact with rap in high school. It was love at first sight. “Whether it's about the struggles of life or the class struggle, rap allowed me to face my problems through my art,” he told The New York Timeswhich him declared in 2019 to one of the fifteen most important European artists of that moment.
At fifteen, Ezhel dropped out of school to focus on music. Reggae was an important source of inspiration at the time; he walked around with dreadlocks. His childhood in a middle-class family in financial difficulties took on political significance when he discovered Bob Marley. He started to delve into Rasta philosophy and sang in various reggae bands. During the Gezi protests From 2013 he was at the forefront of the battles with the police. But like many young people, he became disappointed in the entrenched left-wing politics in Turkey. “I became alienated from the politicized approach,” he says in the book Ezhel: Kazidım Tirnaklarla by journalist Baris Akpolat. Yet his commitment has always been reflected in his music, although the message is not always clear.
50 dollars
When Ezhel started, Turkish rap was still in the dark. It was not played on Turkish radio or TV, and record companies saw no profit in it. That's why Ezhel released his debut album Müptezhel (2017) self-published. The record is a blueprint of his successful sound: the slow, abstract beats of producers Bugy and DJ Artz, the influences from trap and reggae, and the frequent use of Auto-Tune to distort his voice. The release had to be postponed by two weeks because he couldn't raise the $50 needed to make the album on Spotify to put. His surprise was great when the album topped the charts a week later. Müptezhel marked Ezhel's big breakthrough and became one of the most listened to Turkish hip-hop albums.
His move to Berlin heralded a new phase of Ezhel's career, in which he began collaborating with other rappers from the Turkish diaspora. The album was released in 2019 Lights Out, a collaboration with Turkish-German rapper Ufo361 (Ufuk Bayraktar) from Berlin. The track 'Wir sind kral' grew into a big hit, which has now been listened to 87 million times on YouTube. Thanks to the combination of Turkish and German lyrics, and the progressive beats of producers Bugy and DJ Artz, the album managed to significantly increase Ezhel's popularity in Germany. “I love Berlin,” he said his first interview in German with the ZDF channel. “I feel free to be who I want to be. Turks from all corners of Turkey live there. So I got to know my country again here.”
His star in Europe rose further with the tropical single 'AYA' (To the moon), a collaboration with the Turkish-Dutch rapper Murda (Önder Dogan). This became an even bigger hit, which has been listened to 240 million times on YouTube. It was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with Murda, which resulted in the album a year later Made in Turkey. It was a turning point in the career of Murda, who until then had mainly rapped in Dutch. Of Made in Turkey he broke through in Turkey. He even became a jury member in the TV program O Ses Türkiye, a kind of Turkish one The Voice. But like Ezhel, he was charged in Turkey in 2021 for encouraging drug use in his music. After a conviction in absentia to more than four years in prison, which seemed to put a stop to his career in Turkey, he was acquitted on appeal last year.
Hip-hop country
Despite all the controversies and legal problems, Turkish rap has
now been fully embraced by the established Turkish music industry. The hits of Ezhel and other popular rappers sound every weekend from the subwoofers of thousands of cars in which young people cruise through Istanbul and other cities. “Turkey is such a hip-hop country,” says Ezhel in one interview with the German hip-hop platform 16bars. “Everyone loves rap, even if not everyone admits it. The media used to make fun of us, they thought rap was childish. But the game has completely changed. Now pop artists ask us to write songs for them. Before, they couldn't sing some things. Their lyrics seemed to come from a factory. Now they want to express from the raw and honest perspective of a rapper.”
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