Turkish Rap Music

‘I thought it was a social commentary’

Rachel Brew is a Sociology and Politics student at Sheffield University.

Without knowing anything:

This wasn’t about the music. This was about the war. This music was completely and utterly informed by its surroundings and I could tell that from just from the video.  The language, the people, the clothing… It was influenced by society. No, I didn’t understand the words… They were Eastern European. Although I didn’t understand the words, I understood the message. It used music as a way to insert a politically driven video into the world. It must be about gang violence, the overwhelming message of the video tells me that street violence is bad but something that cannot be avoided: when you’re in it, you’re in it for life. It’s an interesting piece of music because as someone who is at university and constantly surrounded by different kinds of people and different kinds of music, I can’t help but think that if it was in English it would be incredibly popular. The young love a politically driven social commentary and I really think that’s what is being given to us here.

After being informed:

25 million views? I’m not shocked. How could I be shocked? Just because we are ignorant western listeners who know nothing about our surroundings, doesn’t mean other people can’t enjoy it. Eminem’s ‘8 Mile’ comments on things I could never understand as a middle class white female, but I like listening to it because I understand the music. Perhaps that’s where the main problem lies for the west, we don’t want to listen to music because we like the beat or the message in a video… We want to know what’s being said and connect to it.  I personally wouldn’t listen to it again, but that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. The sound was great, the words were clearly heartfelt and meant something to him so it’s not him… It’s me. It wasn’t the kind of music I choose to listen to, I’m not pretentious or picky, I just like the music I like and this was not it.