Cartel (hip hop group)
Cartel was a temporary merger of Turkish hip-hop bands formed in Germany . This was the first nationally known Turkish-speaking rap formation ever. It was extremely popular in Turkey in the mid-1990s , but the group also achieved greater prominence in Europe - especially in Germany and Austria .
Career
Cartel emerged in 1994 from three different hip-hop projects by musicians of Turkish origin in Germany, who had previously only achieved regional fame: Erci E. , Karakan and Da Crime Posse .
The formation's debut album Cartel (also under the name Spyce ), produced in Germany and first published in 1995 , had only sold 29,000 times in Germany before surprisingly immediately topped the sales charts after its release in Turkey. In October 1996 the group broke up. In 1997 there was the chance to appear with Peter Maffay on his album Encounter , although the constellation of the group had changed this time and consisted of Erci E., Bektaş, Kapman Hakan and Aksit Uğurlu. The song was pre-produced in Kreuzberg by Aksit Uğurlu and Kapman Hakan, the final mix of the song was completed in the Road Runner Studios by Peter Maffay.
During Cartel's short career, the band gave around 120 extremely successful concerts in Turkey, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, France and Germany. Cartel is the only hip-hop group that managed to fill Istanbul's İnönü Stadium (as of December 2006). In addition to German and Turkish-language media, BBC-London also reported on the group, as did the music channels VIVA and MTV.
In Turkey, where the band, which also appears in English, Spanish and German, has remained most successful, Cartel has so far sold more than half a million CDs through official sales. The band's first album, released in 2004, is still on the market today. On February 4, 2011 the group released their new album Bugünkü Neşen Cartel'den and their new video Bir Oluruz , but without Kabus Kerim.
meaning
Cartel is considered to be a pioneer in the use of traditional Turkish musical instruments in rap. They also occupy a prominent position as interpreters of a modernized form of the Gurbet Türküleri . In Turkey there had been practically no rap and hip hop scene before the band's success, which is why Cartel's influence there even has to be described as style-forming: "The Turkish scene was so strongly influenced by this style that it is still today have not yet recovered from it and are still yelling the same shit, "says the German-Turkish rapper Fuat, however, also quite critical. "There are two or three rappers in Turkey who do something innovative. All the others are (...) just a copy, a super bad black and white copy of Cartel."
Reasons of success
The Islamic scholar Maria Wurm sees music in migration in her publication . Observations on the cultural articulation of Turkish youth in Germany (2006) the treatment of life situations of Turkish migrant youth in the texts of the group as an essential reason for the success of Cartel in the German-speaking area. In Turkey, according to Wurms, the band was more successful "because they came from the West and even more because they represented something Turkish that was recognized in the West". A particular success of the German Turks in the nationalist circles of Turkey is based on an intercultural misunderstanding: "Songs like Türksün ( Eng : You are Turk) were intended as an invitation to more self-confidence in young migrant youth living in Germany. A direct translation of such texts into one The Turkey-Turkish context had completely different implications and hit a nationalistic nerve in Turkey "(Wurm). In 1996, with a compilation article against racism, Cartel defended itself against such unilateral political appropriation. 1998, after the dissolution of the band, another single was released in this regard also encounters with the German musician Peter Maffay under the name Cartel, but actually only worked with Erci E. thereon.
Awards (selection)
- "Golden Cassette" (Turkey) for 100,000 copies of the CD Cartel sold (within the 1st week)
- Twice "Platinum cassette" (Turkey) for 250,000 copies of the CD Cartel sold (within the 2nd week)
Discography
- 1995: Cartel (own album)
- 1996: Explosive against racism (sampler contribution)
- 1998: Encounters Cartel & Peter Maffay (single with Peter Maffay)
- 1999: Live encounters
- 2011: Bugünkü Neşen Cartel`den
Web links
- Works by and about Cartel in the catalog of the German National Library