Turkish hip-hop
[2] Exclusionary practices on behalf of the government, particularly in terms of citizenship status, create systematic discrimination of Turks in Germany that fuels racism against migrant workers.
Often living in dilapidated neighborhoods and marked as outsiders by their "eastern" traditions and poor command of the German language, Turkish urban youth gravitate towards hip hop as means of expressive identity construction.
From the first rap vinyl recorded in the Turkish language—‘Bir Yabancının Hayatı’ (The Life of a Foreigner) by King Size Terror—to the creation of an entire subgenre—Oriental hip hop—Turkish youth in Germany have embraced and moved beyond pure imitation of African American hip-hop culture.
This mentality combined with government exclusionary practices caused many Turks to feel alienated and displaced; they maintained an outsider position in society.
[4] Because of poor integration policies in Germany, Turkish immigrants isolated themselves in ethnic enclaves away from the dominant society and created their own vibrant communities.
After Germany passed a law in 1983 to pay foreigners to leave the country, Turks set up their own services to mediate between individuals and the government, creating institutionalized space.
Children of migrants who were born in Germany and grew up in these ethnic enclaves carry the norms and traditions of their parents' culture and the dominant society.
For Turkish youth who didn't identify with Germany as a homeland, localized German hip hop still did not appeal to them nor function as a medium of self-expression.
In an interview with Andy Bennet one Turkish-German label owner put it: “Well, from a musical point of view we’re trying to combine traditional Turkish melodies and rhythms with rap.
As Bennet writes, “the fact of language itself can also play a crucial role in informing the way in which song lyrics are heard and the forms of significance which are read into them”.
For example, when Cartel—the original Turkish-language rap project to get off the ground—released their debut album to address the first generation of Turkish immigrants in Berlin, it sparked an international controversy.
Later, he gets our record and listens to both styles in one” [4] Furthermore, album artwork and lyrical content enable hip-hoppers and fans to identify commercially and express individually their Turkish identity.
In order to see a comprehensive picture of the cultural groundwork Turkish hip hop accomplishes, it's important too take a closer look at the origins of the movement as well as specific examples of local artists.
Islamic Force (now KanAK) was founded in the 1980s as a way to give ethnic minorities in Germany a voice and is often recognized as the spark that started Oriental hip hop.
By rapping in their native language, Islamic Force connected directly with Turkey as a country as well as their cultural background while simultaneously merging a global genre (hip hop) with a local culture (Turkish traditions) [9] According to Diessel, “The synthesis of Turkish musical idioms and language with hip hop was successful in appealing to a young audience.
For Turkish youth in Germany, Oriental hip hop is at once profoundly local and simultaneously global; it imagines, through the evocation of the far reaching ‘Orient’ and the cohesive language of hip hop, multiple possibilities of resistance to the politics of exclusion” [8] The first rap vinyl to be recorded in the Turkish language was 'Bir Yabancının Hayatı' ('The Life of a Foreigner'), by the Nuremberg, Germany crew King Size Terror.
In fact, it even incorporates an element of "rebellion" towards the discrimination Turks face in German society, and hip-hop is united with other cultural expressions in this regard.
[11] This disenfranchised group, defined by one scholar as "hyphenated German citizens," is drawn to hip-hop as a form of expression because its members have been denied representation and recognition by the majority.
But nationalism is not absent from the German rap scene; on the contrary, there is an implicit (and sometimes explicit) conflict over national identity that finds expression, on the one hand, in charges that the attempt to form a 'German' rap culture is inherently exclusionary, and on the other, in the growth of a counter-nationalism in the form of ethnic-Turkish or so-called 'Oriental hip hop'" (142) In "From Krauts with attitudes to Turks with attitudes: some aspects oh hip hop history in Germany", written by Dietmar Eleflein, "Yet at the same time, the title Krauts with Attitude also played with a kind of non-dissident identification of a part of the West German hip-hop scene with its role models.
Oriental hip hop was the product of two innovations, having to do with the Turkish language and the choice of material which started with King Size Terror’s ‘The Life of the Stranger.
Oriental hip hop represented the second and third generation Turks that rebelled against the policy in Germany; Turkish individuals were discriminated against because of their race.
Through ‘imaginary’ journeys back to the homeland—whether it's reminiscing about vacations to Istanbul or public discourse about Turkey—Turkish-German youth construct their local identities from global places.
In addition to the physical transmission of hip-hop cassettes to Germany, globalization enables a transnational movement as well as identity by connecting alienated youth to their ethnic roots.
In her song, ‘Bosphorus Bridge,’ this Berlin-Turk rapper attempts to “locate the descendants of Turk migrants in a hybrid space where cultural borders blend, where periphery meets the centre, and where the West merges East (.
In a similar vein, MC Boe-B expresses his double diasporic identity as well as the quest for his homeland in his song ‘Selamın aleyküm.’ Translated by Ayhan Kaya, Mc Boe-B raps the following lyrics, " They arrive in Istanbul from their villages/ And got searched in the German customs/It is as if they got purchased/Germans thought they’d use and kick them off /But they failed to/Our people ruined their plans/Those peasants turned out to be clever/They worked hard/Opened a bakery or a doner kebab/on each corner/ But they paid a lot for this success" [4] Referring to those who have been twice migrants, these lyrics begin by expressing the hardship guest workers faced when they first arrived in Germany.
Timothy Brown in ‘Keeping it Real’ in a Different ‘Hood: (African-) Americanization and Hip-Hop in Germany, described Turkish hip hop as the product of a language and source material innovation.
[14] According to an article about German hip hop in The Bomb Hip-Hop Magazine, Germany is full of immigrants, and consequently, everyone raps in the language they prefer.
[14] In 2006, the members of Nefret broke up and Dr. Fuchs released the song "Hani Biz Kardeştik (Ceza Diss)" ("I thought we were like brothers") on his official website.
In 2007, Turkish rapper Ege Çubukçu released an underground diss single against Ceza titled "Cennet Bekleyebilir" ("Heaven Can Wait").
[23] The first Turkish language hip hop record was titled Bir Yabancının Hayatı or The Life of Serkan Danyal Munir Raymondo Tatar, produced by King Size Terror, a Turkish-German group from Nuremberg, in 1991.
