Abstract
To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the Turkish-German music interplay the article outlines a history of the reception of Turkish music in Germany. What remained the story of a rather unsuccessful effort to connect Turkish-speaking and German-speaking people in the period from the 1960s to the 1980s, has changed with German-Turkish hip-hop since the 1990s and more significantly over the last few years with (neo-)Anatolian pop – with vocals in Turkish – now being well received in Germany and internationally. In a first step, the article examines why the earlier attempts to establish a Turkish-German music interplay flopped, how the cultural framework of reception and distribution of music was built in Germany for both audiences, and which social, cultural and musical conflicts were in play. To this effect, the main focus is set on a special case of interplay serving as an example: Musicians singing Turkish pop music in German and musicians singing German pop music in Turkish. After decades of flops in Turkish-German music interplay and after decades of German-Turkish hip-hop it now works even the more complicated way, that is with vocals in Turkish and Turkish elements in the musical structure and instrumentation. The latter have been an obstacle for gaining non-Turkish people’s musical appreciation in Germany for a long time. But what has been an obstacle now turns out to be an asset, as for the first time a considerable non-Turkish speaking audience in Germany is enjoying (neo-)Anatolian pop. This leads to the second step of the analysis, which will address the question of how this could happen by investigating the elements that induced this change. The analysis of the described topic will draw on Popular Music Studies, decolonial discussions as well as a comparative perspective. The latter is focused on (non-)transfer, (non-)exchange and (non-)interplay to enlighten inter-ethnic and inter-cultural issues of connection or separation.
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