{"id":2858,"date":"2021-10-26T13:59:05","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T10:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.istanbulberlin.com\/?p=2858"},"modified":"2021-10-26T18:18:25","modified_gmt":"2021-10-26T15:18:25","slug":"murat-g-roportaji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.istanbulberlin.com\/en-de\/murat-g-roportaji\/","title":{"rendered":"Murat G.: \u201cTurkish Rap was a Baby Born to Germany\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
The second case file of our #60JahreMusik project entitled Hip Hop begins with our Murat G\u00fcngor interview, better known by his stage name Murat G.<\/a> Murat is a musician who simultaneously pioneered and witnessed the birth of Turkish rap in Germany. He is also a researcher of hip hop culture who sees it as the successor to gastarbeiter groove. <\/span><\/h6>\n
You\u2019ll find featured here the first Turkish rap track and album, as well as a timeline of the Germany of Metin T\u00fcrkoz\u2019s time to its current post-migratory state in regards to hip hop culture.<\/span><\/h6>\n

Cover Visual: DJ Mahmut & Murat G. Frankfurt concert, 1998 \u00a9 Murat G.<\/p>\n

English Translation by Zeynep Beler<\/p>\n

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Murat Gu\u0308ngo\u0308r 2020 \u00a9 Jeannette Petri<\/p><\/div>\n

As the 1990s approached, those immigrant workers\u2019 children who were able to join their families in Germany were growing up in Germany in spite of their parents\u2019 enduring hopes of returning to Turkey someday. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the \u201890s bore witness to racist attacks following the rise of the radical right and xenophobia. Houses of Turkish families were targeted by arson attacks, in 1992 in the northern city of M\u00f6lln and then again in 1993 in the northwestern city of Solingen. Three people in M\u00f6lln and five in Solingen lost their lives. These attacks were a turning point for the Turks living in Germany.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs the second wave, we wanted to make our voices heard. We wanted to express ourselves through music and our burgeoning culture against the oppressive events of the \u201890s and the racism we encountered in school, on the street, and among friends,\u201d explains Murat G., whose given name is Murat G\u00fcng\u00f6r.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He joins us on a video call from Frankfurt, where he works as a teacher.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We are in meeting with someone who\u2019s both a musician and a researcher of musical culture. Murat pioneered Turkish rap on Germany\u2019s music stage between 1990-1999 as both a rapper and a producer. <\/span><\/p>\n

He then went on to work with Hannes Loh, a fellow rapper and researcher of musical culture and also a teacher as himself. You could follow their joint instagram page from here<\/a> . <\/span><\/p>\n

They co-wrote a book on hip hop culture titled \u201cFear Of A Kanak Planet- HipHop zwischen Weltkultur und Nazi-Rap\u201d. The book has helped install \u201cmusic by children of gurbet which till that day had never been acknowledged by the German media\u201d in Germany\u2019s hip hop history. It also incited other discussions, leading to heightened interest and eventually the current-day acknowledgement of this history within the music history of Germany. Murat is also co-founder of the anti-racist community Kanak Attak.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hannes Loh ile yazd\u0131klar\u0131 “From \u2018Gastarbeiter\u2019 to Gangsta Rapper?\u201d (“‘Misafir \u0130\u015f\u00e7i’den’ Gangsta Rap\u00e7i’ye”) makalesinde<\/span>, the era of hip hop is characterized as the extension of the music made by Turkish immigrants in Germany up to the \u201890s. In spite of the differences of the genres, the lyrics of both \u201cgastarbeiter groove\u201d and hip hop concern the same issue: the predicament of the immigrants in Germany.<\/span><\/p>\n

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DJ Mahmut & Murat G. \u00a9 Murat G.<\/p><\/div>\n

From Guest Worker Tunes to Hip Hop<\/b><\/p>\n

Telling us that he didn\u2019t know Metin T\u00fcrk\u00f6z back when he made music, Murat clarifies that this is an instance of disconnect. By extension, he stresses the importance of the 2013 \u201cSongs of Gastarbeiter\u201d compilation by \u0130mran Ayata and B\u00fclent Kulluk\u00e7u, which he says \u201cchanged our perspective on the lives of the estranged\u201d. He takes \u0130mran Ayata\u2019s appraisal of Metin T\u00fcrk\u00f6z as the \u201cfirst rapper\u201d one step further, characterizing T\u00fcrk\u00f6z as Germany\u2019s first freestyle rapper, and T\u00fcrk\u00fcola, whose founder Y\u0131lmaz As\u00f6cal passed away recently, as its first independent record company. <\/span><\/p>\n

The first wave of music came into Germany from Turkey, but this second wave was ushered in from New York by Public Enemy. The children of immigrants heard this sound from the USA and wanted to make their own voices heard. Islamic Force, Karakan, DJ Mahmut and I were all experiencing the same disconnect.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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DJ Mahmut & Murat G. Istanbul concert, Roll Magazine, October 1998.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Birth of Turkish Rap: \u201cLife of a Stranger\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

We rapped in English because we saw it as the native language of this music. But we decided to rap in Turkish in the name of making our voices heard in the face of racism. Our English was also less than fluent and we had a hard time writing our raps, and it also sounded strange to our ears. We could neither express ourselves sufficiently nor ensure that our audience made out of the lyrics what we wished them to.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Discounting Bar\u0131\u015f Man\u00e7o or MF\u00d6\u2019s rap-containing songs from Turkey or, from Germany, Yar\u0131nistan\u2019s track we touched upon in our interview with them, Turkish rap was heard for the first time in the track \u201cBir Yabanc\u0131n\u0131n Hayat\u0131\u201d (Life of a Stranger) by the N\u00fcrnberg-based band King Size Terror. Starting off in English, the track pivoted to Turkish after the lines:<\/span><\/p>\n

Now let me kick it in my own language, so my Turk bros can understand my message <\/span><\/p>\n

(\u015eimdi T\u00fcrk karde\u015flerim mesaj\u0131m\u0131 anlas\u0131nlar diye, kendi dilimde devam edeyim…)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n