The Turkish Rap scene and the song Fight Kulup
When you think of Rap and Hip-hop, the Turkish scene isn't the one that comes to mind for most people. This doesn't mean that it is objectively worse compared to other scenes or underrated or whatever, what it really means is that it is a very new and growing sect in Turkish music that has become a lot more mainstream in recent years especially with young people now listening to Rap instead of the Regular Pop music that had Turkish Radio in a chokehold for the last 15 years. Before we get into the recent popularity of Rap music in Turkey I want to go to the beginnings of it, and really explain who the big players who started the scene were. First off we have Ceza. who is very often compared to Eminem because of his style and flow being very fast, (especially on a song like Holocaust which is very often seen as the Turkish alternative of Rap God where it is basically just the rapper rhyming as much as possible in the shortest amount of time.) but I feel like Ceza was always closer to actual Turkish popular music and Arabesk music especially in his use of beats. This song down here is a great example of what I mean when I say he uses traditional Turkish Instrumentation in many of his beats.
To keep on with the Theme of Ceza, another Originator of the Genre is Sagopa Kajmer. Sagopa and Ceza used to be close and made music together. Sagopa was always a lot more emotional and held up the more Lyrical part of the early scene while Ceza was more of a Flow over lyrics type person. I think an amazing example of this contrast between them is on Ceza's second album Rapstar on the song Neyim Var ki, and man, Sagopa's voice is just perfect for the chorus.
The line, ''Neyim var ki Rapten gari'' means ''What would I have without Rap'' which just goes to show how important hip hop was to these early rappers and why they tried so much to bring it into the mainstream. Unfortunately, Ceza and Sagopa split paths after this and stopped making music together for reasons we still do not completely know. Young people were starting to catch on to names Like Sagopa and Ceza and also a lot of other minor artists mostly coming from connections through Ceza when he went to Germany, names like Eko Fresh and Killa Hakan are some of the most Popular. I picked Killa Hakan from this era because he is a Turk living in Germany and is a great example of how that German scene also connects back to the Turkish Scene. I personally dislike Killa Hakan's flow on most songs. He misses the beat atrociously on almost every bar on the song Hersey Yolundadir which is shown below. However the song still kind of sounds good, and was a hit comparatively because the scene was so small at the time.
Now with the early era out of the way I think its best we start talking about the new era names. Some popular ones that I come to mind are Ezhel and Ben Fero. Ezhel is from Ankara the capitol of Turkey and he came out with his debut album Muptezel in 2017, he was very much influenced by the mumble rap and autotune era the rest of the world was going through and it can be seen in his music. He also had a lot of problems with the government because of him talking about Drugs and Political issues in his songs which is a big No-No in Turkey. The song ''Alo'' which is down below shows this really well.
The whole song is basically about how hard it is to get weed in Turkey. He starts with a verse about calling his friends to get money together, then to the plug not answering, then going and buying shit weed just for the cops to pull up and him dropping the weed and losing it, only to call up his friends again to get more money together. Its great commentary on the Drug issues in Turkey in my opinion and also a very catchy song, ''ALO ALO ALO ALO''. The next artist that really got popular in recent times is Ben Fero, he is from the Coastal city Izmir and he really came out of nowhere with an album in 2019 called "Orman Kanunlari" that got so popular I know 50-60 year old Turkish people that played these songs at social events, it was that big. I think it had a huge effect on Rap music becoming more Mainstream in Turkey. here is the most popular song on that album Demet Akalin, the name comes from a Turkish pop singer that he is eluding to in the song.
The line "Radyomuzda yine Demet Akalin, Bi kez olsun bizi Calmadin Adamim" roughly means "Demet Akalin on the Radio again, play our music for once my man" it sounds a lot better in Turkish trust me. Ben Fero is also the only Turkish rapper I know of who uses the N-word frequently, but the connotation in Turkey is very different, I do not believe that Ben Fero is a racist, he is simply too lazy to find a different word to Rhyme with. Now why did I highlight these Rappers specifically, because I wanted to show you guys a very important cultural event for the Scene, The Song ''Fight Kulup" which features all 4 artists I talked about.
This song came out around 4 years ago, at Ezhel and Ben Fero's peak popularity and Ceza and Killa Hakan at their comparative lowest. The song was Clowned on online by people who Liked the old era better and they didn't like that Ceza was coming together with this new mainstream. (The Ceza fans think they are better and more musically in tune than everyone else and hate on anything that isn't similar to Ceza's style.) The dislikes were immeasurable and almost every comment was a hate comment against Ezhel, Killa Hakan and Ben Fero while no one really could bring themselves to Hate Ceza. However, the hate the song got didn't change the fact that the song was still extremely popular and has a million YouTube likes to this day. I personally do not enjoy the song a lot but I understand why it was so big. this was a clash of eras and it brought Turkish Rap back into the conversation for the average internet consumer even though it was because people were making fun of it. At last Turkish rap had become mainstream and now you can ask someone on the street in Turkey, do you remember the Blup Blup Blup Joke that was everywhere because of the song Fight Klup?, I bet you 100 Lira that they will know what I am talking about.













