Foreigners in Germany

German-Turkish hip-hop has had a seminal influence on rap music in Turkey. A sociologist and a documentary film maker have travelled to Munich to find out why this is so.

It is not definite evidence, but it is evidence: a demand for sweaters, sneakers and aerosol cans. Where these things are bought there must also be people who make rap music and paint graffiti. “Mighty Weeny” is Europe’s largest hip-hop shop, tucked away in a small side street in chic Munich, of all places. Demet and Devrim Lüküsli from Istanbul heard about the shop and put it on their itinerary. With funding from the City of Munich, the two travelled to Bavaria to investigate the roots of Turkish hip-hop.

Hip-hop in Munich

These roots are in Germany, as hip-hop was made popular in Turkey by German-Turkish musicians. These have become role models in a similar way to that in which rappers from the USA have become role models around the world. Over in the States, hip-hop also emerged in the late seventies. Turkey did not import this music from overseas, however, but from Germany. Sociologist Demet Lüküsli deals with this phenomenon in her dissertation, and her brother Devrim made a documentary film about it. They both met members of the hip-hop scene in Munich – most of them are Turks with an immigrant background.

In the Bavarian graffiti scene, it does not matter what nationality you are, says Uli, proprietor of “Mighty Weeny”. He should know, because he has had contact with the scene for years. “The people in the sprayer groups are yellow, black, white and green,” he says. Maybe that is what makes it hard to find a common denominator among Bavarian hip-hoppers. The community is not as close-knit as in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg; everyone tries to be unique and makes his own music. Also, the songs are sometimes sung in German and sometimes in Turkish.

In Turkey, hip-hop is far from being mainstream, as Lüküsli discovered in conversations with many young people in Istanbul, where hip-hop musicians remain underground. “In contrast, Germany at least has the image of having many Turkish rappers and sprayers,” she says.

The detour via Germany

The German scene, which is indeed sizeable, is not only concentrated in Berlin, where the closure of the hip-hop labels Aggro was recently lamented. The first word that springs to mind in connection with the subject of “hip-hop in Germany” is “Kreuzberg,” says Demet critically. That is the case even though Munich, alongside Paris and London, was one of the first metropoles where the movement thrived. 1984 saw the spraying of Europe’s first graffiti train, which has come to be known as the Geltendorf train. “The Bavarian government immediately set up the first graffiti commission,” adds Uli, laughing. In his view, it is German-Turkish artists in Munich in particular who have broken new ground.

But why did hip-hop make the detour via Germany before arriving in Turkey? For a long time, it was not easy to make hip-hop music in Turkey. The state broadcasting station TRT had a broadcasting monopoly until 1990. Then commercial media providers from abroad started broadcasting to Turkey by satellite – first from Germany. Of course, the new radio stations needed easy-listening music, thus providing an ideal platform for new bands. Within a short time, a culture emerged in Turkey that targeted only young people. There were pop stars and one-hit miracles, and pretty soon the music market was vast, writes Maria Wurm in her dissertation Musik in der Migration.

No hip-hop scene of any note emerged in Turkey at this stage, however. Things were different in Germany at the same time. Karakan from Nuremberg was one of the first German-Turkish groups and part of the music collective Cartel, which mixed hip-hop with oriental elements. The music station MTV included Cartel in its programme and its first album of 1995 won critical respect in Germany. The members of Cartel became stars in Turkey.

Touching a nerve

Two reasons are given for the success of Cartel in Turkey: on the one hand, Turkish young people liked the music because it came from the West and represented something Turkish that was appreciated there. On the other, Cartel was interesting on account of its texts. The group sang about the situation of young migrants living in Germany. That touched a nerve. Songs like Türksün (You are a Turk) appealed for more self-confidence. Outside Germany, such texts sounded a touch more nationalistic, however, and in Turkey, too, the music was perceived by some in that way. The band resisted political appropriation, however.

The Lüküsli siblings are not only interested in hip-hop sound and the different genres within it, but also in the working conditions and attitudes that go hand in hand with rapping and graffiti spraying. Demet even may already have found an answer to the question of why German-Turkish hip-hop has had such a seminal influence on music in Turkey: “Of course Turkish hip-hoppers talk about the USA too. But they have a more vivid image of Germany simply because they have more contacts here than in New York, for instance,” she says. Demet and Devrim Lüküsli will present the findings of their research within the framework of the project Crossing Munich, to be held in Munich from 9 July 2009.