I grew up with his songs. Perhaps that’s why I was often sad during my childhood.

Ahmet Kaya was a great master of music. In my opinion Turkey’s greatest singers and composers are Sezen Aksu and Ahmet Kaya.

I ought to not have hesitated to introduce him in this former article of mine (it was mentioned on the Financial Times web site).

I hesitated because several of his songs were actually songs that the terrorist group the PKK imposed him. He was most probably under pressure because he was a man of peace : he did fight for the Kurdish cultural rights and he always had the dream to sing in Kurdish (he was besides also under the pressure of the Turkish nationalists, so I guess he was trying to survive in the middle of that madness).

I always shiver when I listen to ‘Karar vermek zor’ and ‘Gül dikeni’ :

Yours sincerely,

Cem

PS. His albums are available on iTunes.

Author : cem
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