After the interview we said good-bye with the certainty, that we just met an extraordinary band, who lives out their attitude to the fullest. That’s exactly what we felt at the show: There were German, Turkish, German-Turkish, differently ethnic, healthy, disabled, young, and old women and men, and everyone felt the Baba Zula philosophy and danced. That is our mission! We all are people! People are people!“ „We want to break down stereotypes and prejudices with our music. They are using their art and their music to build this bridge, and thereby are able to bring people together. They don’t want to be provocative, but to overcome all cultural, religious and ethnical resentments. Embracing what isn’t yours and understanding the actual wearer“, is their statement. The approach to their stage costumes is equally eclectic: be it an 80s glitter blouse, an Alevist skirt, an Anatolian shepherd coat or a fringy charleston-dress.
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There are songs, which last 15 seconds and songs that last 15 minutes. The band, which was found in 1996, is even breaking every norm in their songs. They let the strength of their cultural roots, which range from Turkish to Ottoman to the pre-Islamic times of the shamans, have influence on their music and thereby use their art as a voice for freedom and appreciation of life! They also are being influenced by national and international artists like Barış Manço and Erkin Koray, or Jimi Hendrix and James Brown. That is also the band’s philosophy and source of inspiration: Life as the greatest secret and the greatest gift at the same time. You will get quickly, why the Baba Zula crew doesn’t see themselves as musicians, but as artists.īaba Zula is a neologism and more or less means the great secret. The coalescence of the symbols on all sensory levels: singing, poetry, dance and the great symbolic significance of the clothes. Baba Zula is taking you along on a long, unforgettable journey! You close your eyes and you’re suddenly finding yourself deep in Anatolia, then they are pulling you out of it and you are melodically ending up at a Turkish wedding, dancing Halay, and in between you are time and time again hearing reggae, dub and folk, while the shamanistic ghosts are swaying to sufi music! And as you are automatically moving to this incredible rhythm, you are also enthused by the whole interactive stage design. I deliberately say show, because their performance resembles a blend of a freak show and the fusion of several cultures: Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern orient and occident funk and electro traditional sounds and modern beats become one. We were able to watch them perform at Club Bahnhof Ehrenfeld in Cologne and conducted a short interview with them afterwards.īut if you want to understand Baba Zula, you need to experience their live show at least once. And certainly since Fatih Akins documentary Crossing the bridge have they won greater fame in Germany as well.
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It is thanks to Levent Akman, Murat Ertel, Coşar Kamçi and the just marvelous Melike Şahin, that oriental dub has found its way into concert halls all around the world. Baba Zulais probably the most exceptional psychedelic band from Istanbul.
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Guest musicians include reggae legends Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, Alexander Hacke- basist of Einsturzende Neubauten, Canadian vocalist Brenna MacCrimmon and three acclaimed artists who span the spectrum from traditional Turkish music (celebrated clarinetist Huesnue enlendirici from Laco Tayfa) to Turkish rock and pop (Oezkan Uur from MFOe), and writer-painter-musician Mehmet Guereli.Īmong Baba Zula's performances are Roskilde Festival (Denmark), Cologne Triennale (Germany), Printemps de Bourges (France) and imdi/Now Festival (Germany), Boost Festival ( Netherlands ), Arezzo Wave (Italy), Klinkende Munt (Brussels). With their third album, " Duble Oryantal" again mixed and mastered in the heart of mega-city Istanbul by Mad Professor, Baba Zula have further developed the new genre they have named oriental dub.There's a talented and eclectic supporting cast on board for a share of musical pioneering. Mixed and mastered by Mad Professor, the notorious British/Jamaican dub producer, the "orientaldub" album incorporates folk tunes, gazel, taksim and bozlak with a contemporary approach and fuses them with universal concepts such as sample, dub and groove. Scoring solely for plays and films until their first vocal album "Psychebelly Dance Music", Baba Zula remains loyal to its singular creativity. Known for its unique sound created by the amalgamation of natural field recordings coupled with traditional and modern acoustic and electronic instruments, Baba Zula, an adventurous underground band, based in Ystanbul has brought a brand new dimension to the alternative world music scene.