Say what? Freddy Quinn, Peter Maffay and Udo Lindenberg performed in Turkish language? And Ajda Pekkan, Nilüfer and Neşe Karaböcek singing in German? Where did this happen? Here, in a world of flops when it came to Turkish-German music exchange.
Freddy Quinn quickly swore off Turkish, Peter Maffay exchanged the collaboration with the hip-hop formation Cartel for Tabaluga, and Udo Lindenberg’s management canceled the tour with his duet partner Sezen Aksu. And a look at the discographies of Turkish singers reveals that they only very sporadically sing in German.
The story remains one of a linguistic-musical rapprochement that had always failed—until a new Turkish generation claimed German as language for hip-hop, while at the same time initiating hip-hop in Germany. Even if the historiography of German hip-hop refrains from acknowledging these facts, Yarınistan’s “Ali Rap” (1990) entered the game two years before the Fantastische Vier. “Ali Rap” is based on a Nilüfer sample, which in turn leads us back to the German language: “Ali” was one of the few tracks that Nilüfer recorded in German.
This intricate net of intervowen elements has led to very particular musical combinations that deserve a closer look. Because the history of Turkish music in and from Germany not only has to be re-written—it has to be written in the first place. Together with Tuncay Acar, we would like to set an impulse for this endeavor with the listening session “A History of Flops” on June 24.
