The ongoing political turmoil in Turkey is reflected in many areas of the cultural landscape, including the processes of music-making. With its immensely rich musical and cultural legacy that combines a rural and urban heritage, Istanbul has become home to many subcultures revolving around a variety of ethnicities and political acts. While the neoliberal urban control and gentrification agenda of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government is reshaping the cultural life in the city; a do-it-yourself (DIY) attitude in the music scene removed the barriers of a hierarchy of production while creating unique performance spaces and a sense of belonging and solidarity among its participants. This essay intends to examine the influence of authoritarian politics on the formation of DIY initiatives in Istanbul’s indie music scene. I will concentrate on the period of 2013–2020, the start date signifying the paradigm shift that the Gezi Park protests (May 27–August 20, 2013) fostered, and the end date signifies the decline of the active music scene, with the COVID-19 pandemic preventing live music altogether. This project is a result of fieldwork conducted as a participant-observer of the scene, in addition to structured and semi-structured interviews. The results of the research will be discussed with a focus on the influence of the Islamist, neoliberal, and authoritarian politics of the government on the indie music scene of Istanbul.
This article looks at Gerhard Gundermann’s use of the Krabat motif from Jurij Brězan’s novel Krabat or the Transformation of the World in his Liedertheater productions with Brigade Feuerstein in the GDR and, post-unification, in his solo songs. From Hoyerswerda in South-East Germany, Gundermann was simultaneously an open-cast miner and a singer/songwriter and dramatist who died prematurely in 1998 at the age of 43. Emerging out of the GDR singing club movement in the late 1970s, he relentlessly exposed the ruling SED Party’s monopoly on power in his work with Brigade Feuerstein. After German unification, as a solo performer, he became the mouthpiece of culturally disenfranchised East Germans. Twenty-five years after his death—in the wake of renewed interest in this performer as evidenced by Andreas Dresen’s film Gundermann (2018) and Grit Lemke’s documentary Gundermann Revier (2019)—it is time for a proper academic assessment of his work. This study breaks new ground, firstly in its analysis of the unpublished works of Brigade Feuerstein and secondly by exploring the extent to which Gundermann’s life work was underpinned by the philosophy of Krabat, in its exposing of humans’ exploitation of one another and their environment. In this, one can see how Gundermann created an aesthetic approach that successfully spanned two political systems.
Within the shifting and highly politicized accreditation of heroes in Zimbabwe, never has the investiture of hero status sparked as much public debate as has the posthumous honor of Zimdancehall artiste, Soul Jah Love. Traditionally applied to political luminaries, the conferment of hero status on arts icons is not novel in Zimbabwe; at least, the accreditation of seasoned artistes like Oliver Mtukudzi, Simon Chimbetu and Dickson Chinx Chingaira furnishes the proof. And now, Soul is also among the “prophets”! A young artiste, with a relatively lean musical career, and of a controversial moral clout, finds himself read in the same scope with the country’s elite liberation heroes—pamamonya ipapo (among the giants)! Soul Jah Love divided public opinion when he was alive just as he did on his death (Antonio 2021). This makes the bestowal of such an honor fiercely contentious. One questions the intelligence that comes up with such decisions and the integrity of the stencil used. Is it on merit? Is it political allegiance or even expediency? Are reality definers consistent in their award of such honors? Is this a redefinition or trivialization of heroic contribution? However, a patient navigation of the lyrical contours and the complexity of social and political messages embedded in Soul Jah Love’s music spurs a second thought for the artiste, the music, and for the award. A flawed genius, a case of golden messages stashed in cursed vessels—music’s version of Dambudzo Marechera? Few may have considered the referential weight of his music and the relevance of his style to his generation of audience and fellow musicians. Consequently, this paper discusses the dynamics of investiture of liberation hero emblem and the political currents that might have been considered in “liberalizing” the liberation stencil to accord Soul Jah Love access to the sacred space. Soul Jah Love’s song “Pamamonya ipapo” (among the giants) can be contrasted with the biblical allusion “Is Saul also among the prophets?” to project a sense of surprise at Saul’s prophetic debut in the company of a band of ‘seasoned’ prophets (1 Samuel 10:11, 12 N.I.V).
This article explores Dutch-German Composer Cord Meijering’s (b. 1955) intercultural translation practices in his piece Marsyas for Percussion Solo Symphony, which premiered in Darmstadt in 2019. This work is based on Greek mythology and the history of the Korean Independence Movement with Eastern and Western percussion. The above-mentioned premiere occurred on the 100th anniversary of the Korean Independence Movement and received intense acclaim from the international audience. However, although Meijering interprets Korean history using a comparison with a Greek myth, he produces a cultural jetlag by replacing the relationship between the dominant and subordinate with the relationship between God and humans. He supplements his understanding of Korean history during the compositional process in cooperation with Korean percussionist Eunbi Jeong. By thoroughly discussing the text of the Declaration of Independence with her, applying traditional Korean percussion instruments, and performing techniques, I argue that Meijering has been able to produce a piece which delivers the spirit of the Korean Independence Movement to an international audience. By reviewing the audience’s reception of the piece, I present how Meijering searched for the modern history of Korea, apart from the influence of his Western cultural roots, and how he represented Korean historic-political events within a Western symphonic form by advancing Korean traditional music. In contemplating the potential of reflexive globalism, this paper raises questions regarding how he in exploring Korea, reevaluates non-Western cultures with a reflective consciousness, acknowledging and respecting the values and heritage inherent in this culture.
